Is Aeneas pious Essay

For many, Aeneas is the characterisation of piety: he honours his duty to the gods and his destiny, his duty to his family, to his people, community and to his fatherland and he adheres to stoic values. Arguably the most important aspect of piety is the adherence to his duty to the gods and his destiny, which I will discuss first. In book 1, Venus appears to her son, Aeneas in the guise of ‘a Spartan girl out hunting, wearing the dress of a Spartan girl and carrying her weapons’. Aeneas recognises that the girl is Augustus also deified Julius in the Lex Titia in 43 BC, which legalised the Second Triumvirate and marked the end of the Roman Republic. Augustus invoked the Lax Papia Poppaea in 9 AD to encourage marriage by making it more economically viable to be married and have children than to not. He also made adultery punishable by banishment by passing the Lex Iulia de Adulteriis Coercendis in 17 BC, and famously banished his only biological daughter, Julia the Elder in 2 BC. This encouraged family unity more than before, and encouraged fathers to stay with their wives and children, especially as there was an extra tax placed on unmarried men above the age of 30. Aeneas demonstrates an incredible sense of duty to his people, community and fatherland right from the beginning of the poem. After the storm induced by Juno and Aeolus, and Aeneas and his men are rescued by Neptune, who is furious that they were changing the natural pattern of his seas, without his permission. Aeneas thinks of his men first, and so, when he saw a herd of deer, he hunted, and killed ‘seven huge carcasses (which he laid) on the ground, one for each of the ships’. This demonstrates how he caters to their needs before his own. The household gods, which feature in book 2, are representative of the Trojan community, and so when Aeneas, ‘fresh from all the fighting and killing’, refuses to touch them because of this, it demonstrates his reverence for the community. In book 4, he also shows consideration towards the community, but Dido’s community in Carthage. Mercury tells us how he ‘caught sight of Aeneas laying the foundations of’ Carthage with Dido. This devotion to the wider community, even though it means that he is digressing from his destiny, is still demonstrating piety. Aeneas not only holds the Funeral Games in book 5 out of reverence for his father, but to also raise the morale of his men. Aeneas holds various races and matches which allow his men to be happy after the death of Dido, which they would have suspected happened, and also after the death of Anchises, and also of various men of the crew. Virgil represents Aeneas as having virtus, as he hides his true emotions inside, to protect his men. In book 1, Aeneas, although ‘he was sick with all his cares(;) he showed (his men) the face of hope and kept his misery deep in his heart’, which would have served to raise the morale of the men, if they knew their leader was not upset, they would be led by example. Augustus demonstrated his care for his community by giving 400 sercestes to each of ‘the Roman plebs’ in 44 BC out of his own money. He also ‘restored the Capitol, and the theatre of Pompey, (†¦) restored the channels of the aqueducts, (and) completed the Forum Julium and the bascilla between the temples of Castor and Saturn’ throughout his reign, up until 12 AD. Contrary to Aeneas and also Augustus, as Aeneas is a characterisation of Augustus, Mezentious is not pious in his care of his community and people. Virgil depicts him as a shocking leader and in book 8; the poet divulges how the leader devised a new form of torture ‘whereby living men were roped to dead bodies, typing them hand to hand and face to face, to die a lingering death oozing with putrefying flesh’. Mezentius’ disdain for his men contrasts to Aeneas’ care and respect for his own men, and indeed of all men, as we see Aeneas rescues the Greek, forgotten by Odysseus (Ulixes) from the Cyclopses, which enhances our views of Aeneas’ piety in comparison to this horrific leader. Aeneas’ piety is often defined by how he demonstrates stoicism, and he does so throughout the poem. Stoics believed that the notion of fate must be respected and that no mortal man could, or should interfere with fate, as it is an inevitable force. The ability to endure what fate throws at you is also an important stoic trait, and one that Aeneas demonstrates again and again. In book 1, Aeneas leads his men through the storm started by Aeolus and Juno, until they are rescued by Neptune. He endures the storm, and motivates his men to trust in him after the storm, and this is primarily why he is such a good leader- because of his resolve and endurance, which also defines his pious nature. A key stoic belief is rationality of the universe, and features within Aeneas. Stoics believed that a rational, and of course, male mind is the best leader for any community, and this is the only way for a community to thrive- under one, rational, male leader. Coincidentally Augustus Caesar fits these criteria, and so, had to kill Anthony. Likewise Cleopatra, who Dido is modelled of, had to die- she was female and so was irrational, so was a bad leader, and this also explains why she was so passionate, because the stoic stereotype of a woman, is that they are passionate, emotional and irrational. The divide between men and women is formed from the prejudice that women are irrational, and the stereotype that men are automatically rational. Throughout the poem, we are presented with the juxtaposition of the irrational females, predominantly Dido and Juno, and the rationality of Aeneas and Jupiter. Jupiter controls fate, installing rationality upon the universe and Juno attempts to derail fate, preventing Aeneas from following his destiny, which, of course, does not work. The victory of Jupiter’s fate is shown by how Jupiter guides Aeneas, which demonstrates how the rationality of the male mind cannot be overthrown by an irrational female, even one who is a goddess. Virgil was rumoured to believe that love and hate were both redundant as they were both concept which wavered from the ‘path’ of fate, creating two opposites that were equally negative to a stoic. This perhaps explains why Virgil shows that the acceptance of fate and your destiny is the only way to achieve rationality. Virgil’s association with Augustus explains why women are portrayed as negative, because Augustus was inherently a stoic, and believed that women were irrational, and destined for dominating the domestic sphere, while men should dominate politics and war. Stoics were firm believers of the concept of ‘mind over matter’, presented by the Trojan women’s matter of flames, which are extinguished by the ‘mind’ (or fate) when Aeneas has to set sail shortly after the Funeral Games. The poet presents his audience with fire for passion, desire and pain which all represent destruction. We learn from his epic poem that Virgil believes that these poisonous emotions will not succeed when faced with fate, as women are primarily linked with fire, as we see Juno frequently described as ‘burning with passion’, and we also see Turnus described as ‘burning’, importantly both effeminising him and scorning war. Aeneas often has to deal with the loss of his men so that he can achieve his destiny; one such victim of Aeneas’ fate is Creusa, who dies before they even leave Troy and another is Aeneas’ father, Anchises. He does more likely die of old age, although Aeneas still mourns his death. Aeneas must accept that there are casualties that must be endured if he can achieve his destiny. The father-son relationship was one that was influenced by stoic beliefs, as stoics believed that the father figure (pater patria) should always be obeyed as he is wise. At the beginning of the poem, Anchises is the pater patria, however once Anchises dies, Aeneas takes over as the pater patria. Aeneas shows his dedication to his father by symbolically carrying him on his shoulders out of Troy, prioritising him even over his only son. These definitions of piety are interlinked, and cannot exist without the others, however, sometimes we see that to fulfil one part of piety, Aeneas must ignore another, and so the rules of what defines a pious person are clearly not set in stone. Nevertheless, Aeneas is as good as a portrayal of a pious person there is, and he is a reflection of how Augustus wished to be viewed. Thus, we have to ask ourselves, as the Roman audience would have: Aeneas is undoubtedly pious and as pious as one man can, theoretically, be, but is he unachievably pious? And so, does this make him as much of a character of mythology as the monsters he encountered in hell, and because of this, I feel the important question is not: ‘is Aeneas pious? ’ but is instead, why is he pious? If Aeneas was not pious, and was instead a mimic of Homer’s Odysseus, who is often represented as Aeneas’ antithesis, would there be any purpose in Virgil’s poem? No, there would not, and this is why Aeneas is shown as pious, and was believed to be the ideal man by the Romans, a mould for which to cast their own characters in and form themselves by.