'The Aeneid' by Virgil (Pt. 3)

We are now going to look at the history of TheAeneid briefly as there are a couple of question which require immediate answering. These questions, when answered, change the meaning of the text and change how we understand why it was written at all. The very first question is of whether Virgil died before he could finish writing it.

According to legend, Virgil only wrote three lines of the poem per day. Whether this legend is true or not is completely unknown, but the fact of the matter is that he may have actually not finished it before he succumbed to death. This is because when we analyse the text, even at a surface level, there are many points at which we can say that there are incomplete lines in The Aeneid. The most important factor though, is the ending.

"Clad, as thou art, in trophies of my friend?To his sad soul a grateful offering go!'Tis Pallas, Pallas gives this deadly blow."He raised his arm aloft, and, at the word,Deep in his bosom drove the shining sword.The streaming blood distained his arms around,And the disdainful soul came rushing thro' the wound."

This is the very end of The Aeneid and don't you think it is an odd place to end an epic. Let's have a brief look at how TheIliad and TheOdyssey end. The Iliad ends with the very famous line "And thus they buried Hector, breaker of horses." This refers to Achilles giving the body of Hector back to the Trojans and the Trojans giving their heir apparent a proper burial. The Odyssey ends at a closure as well, it ends with Odysseus obeying Athena after all the war is done and the suitors have all been killed. The problem most scholars have with The Aeneid is that is does not end like this, and that means it does not end like an epic should. This not only provides evidence that The Aeneid was never a part of the oral tradition, but this also provides evidence for the fact that Virgil died before it's completion. In the quotation we have recently read, we have Aeneas providing the last blow as he avenges Pallas. But there is nothing after it. There is nothing there to say that anything happened after the death of this character nor is there anything to say whether Aeneas lived afterwards. There is only the end of the text in which the blood came flowing from an open wound.

Some may argue that this ending may have been on purpose, but if we were to compare it to other epics from around the world, it just looks slightly unfinished. The incompletion of Virgil's work actually led other poets and scholars to compose their own versions of the poems with the gaps all filled in. This is also an argument to how the readers of various eras were reliant on their belief that Virgil's work was incomplete because he died and not because it was for dramatic effect.

The fact that this was supposed to supplement or rival Homer's works is very obvious from the writing style. Particularly one of my personal favorites - the whole poem seems to be written in dactylic hexameter. The same metrical meter as Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. This is a clue as to what Virgil would have wanted others to think of the poem were he to publish it. However, it has been speculated that Virgil wanted nothing more than the poem to burn. The fact that it was published after only minor alterations means that it was good enough for the Roman public, thus the Emperor must have been impressed with what Virgil had produced, whether finished or not.

The Aeneid may have been some sort of political ploy as well as a text to convey the discovery of Rome as a genealogy myth for the masses. This is because of the character of Aeneas. Aeneas is a character who tries his best to avoid putting his people in the face of brutal warfare. He is strong, he is powerful, he is most importantly, a reflection. There are many sources and scholars who have believed for hundreds of years that Aeneas is meant to be a reflection of the Emperor Augustus. This not only would have been known to the Roman Public when the text was released into the circles but, it would've made the claim of legitimacy to the throne stronger as the main character has parallels with the Roman Emperor of their time.

There are many points to support how Aeneas and Augustus are alike. Not only by strength but by accomplishment, Emperor Augustus was rebuilding Rome after the Roman Civil Wars and obviously, Aeneas has his duty of rebuilding order when it came to the remaining Trojan People. Almost biblical in a sense, this is meant to represent the same group of people, Trojans and Romans being led away from the wreckage, ruin and horrors of war by one, powerful leader.

The acts of Aeneas reflect the the purpose of restoring order in Rome after the Civil War and an era of complete peace in restoration.

This proves that not only was Virgil trying to connect his own contemporary time to something from mythology and probably a very distant history. But it also proves that Virgil had a political motive down to the presentation of the main character compared to the Emperor of Rome in his own day. He even had one of Augustus' right hand men as his patron who too, would gain a fair share from Virgil's correct and political presentation of the character of Aeneas in the text.

As it has a strong political history behind it which includes the peace restoration after the Roman Civil Wars, there is much reason to believe in the fact that The Aeneid also has a strong cultural significance. The question now is whether The Aeneid not only was influenced by Homer's works, but also influenced works to come and epics of other times and cultures. Even though it may have been an essential of Latin education and a text of the second century AD that required memorization and recitation, there have been other culturally significant influences The Aeneid has had.

It is very clear that the Aeneid has brought the idea of the dutiful hero to the forefront of literature and therefore, possibly had a huge influence on the character of Beowulf. The similarities between the characters who will do their duty no matter whether they live or die mostly, against their own free will and driven by the force of fate is immense and there is much reason to believe that Beowulf took quite a bit from Aeneas' character.

But there is one text that was influenced by The Aeneid more than any other text. This was Dante's Divine Comedy. We are now going to have a brief look at how The Aeneid influenced Dante's Divine Comedy in the way in which characters, themes and ideas are presented. Especially, how the poet Virgil is presented as the one who knows all of the divine knowledge. Let's have a look at how Dante's Inferno influenced the image of Virgil that we have today by what he says in Dante's Inferno as the protagonist follows Virgil through hell.

"Philosophy, for one who understands,points out, and not in just one place," he said,"how nature follows—as she takes her course—the Divine Intellect and Divine Art;and if you read your Physics carefully,not many pages from the start, you’ll seethat when it can, your art would follow nature,just as a pupil imitates his master;so that your art is almost God’s grandchild."(Book 11)

Here we have Virgil explaining the act of philosophy to Dante in a way to understand and conceptualise Dante's idea of Christianity. According to this quotation and Virgil's character, nature follows "Divine Intellect and Divine Art." Whereas, man's want is to follow nature and therefore, through this act of following—man is following the divine and thus, he follows God. I believe this is a very thought-provoking line as it is also Dante who follows Virgil, where in the sequence of man, nature and God this is placed is for another time.

You may find it interesting as well how this presents to us, Virgil's character. Virgil himself was not a Christian - but he states that there are divine things that nature follows. This is the same as it is in Roman Polytheism and therefore, Virgil presents himself as not being a "heretic" in the eyes of the Christians, rather just a non-believer. During this early time of Christianity, if you were not a Christian, you were not allowed into Heaven. This is why Virgil stops at the doors when it comes to the "Paradise" Book of the Divine Comedy. The fact that Virgil is not a heretic and rather, a studious and philosophical man who is wholly good has influenced our image of Virgil today. We may never know what Virgil was really like, in all aspects he was probably a great supporter of peace because of his writing of The Aeneid to influence to restoration after the civil war.

The fact that we are, at the moment in the sixth circle of hell within the Inferno—we can say that Virgil is deliberately trying to distance himself from these people and therefore, is not behaving as a heretic though he is not a believer. Dante is trying to create a universal image of Virgil which aligns himself with good, Christian values—even though the man himself was not a Christian at all.

Let's take a look at another quotation:

"But fix your eyes below, upon the valley,for now, we near the stream of blood, where thosewho injure others violently, boil." (Book 12)

This is an incredible quotation that both echoes Christian values, Virgil's Aeneid and even Homer's Iliad. Let's see why that is.

In terms of presenting Virgil as being a man of Christian values, this quotation is very important. In the Bible, one of the most famous lines is "love thy neighbour," and those who do not do that are explained as being boiled violently. The way Virgil uses language such as "violent," "those who injure others"—it's almost angry. This is presenting Virgil as having those Christian values as he has anger towards those who do not love thy neighbour.

It has a massive connection to the Aeneid as well, and this is very important for the way in which Virgil is presented and how Christian Values are also presented. It is well documented that later on in the Roman Empire things turned towards Christianity and therefore, The Aeneid would've had a slightly different meaning. A famous quotation from The Aeneid regards the fall of Rome. That if Rome ever fell, then the rivers shall be rivers of blood. It was also a quotation infamously butchered by Enoch Powell. But, when it comes to presenting Virgil, The Inferno not only references the same type of act—something going wrong and rivers flowing with blood. But it takes what Virgil wrote and makes it Christian. Therefore, Dante again is trying to show that Virgil, though he is not a Christian, has good Christian Values.

As Virgil's Aeneid references the Iliad we also need to look at the River Scamander flowing with blood in the latter part of Homer's epic. This is referenced again, for the impact of Christianity. These references are made backwards not forwards and therefore, the Christian Values of the river of blood in Dante's Inferno would already be there—Virgil's Aeneid and Homer's Iliad would then get the same Christian ideas applied to them. This idea is that if the values of Christianity are not followed then there will be rivers of blood. This is something which, in the times of Virgil and Homer, meant an entirely different thing. But, in the Renaissance Christian world in which all of these epics are making a comeback in popularity after the plague—people needed to find a way for this to suit them.

Again, the point is Virgil was not a Christian, but if he was he would have been a good Christian with the correct values.

If you're still not convinced that this is the case, look at how Dante presents Virgil and solidifies his image in this quotation from Book 11:

"Of every malice that earns hate in Heaven,injustice is the end; and each such endby force or fraud brings harm to other men.However, fraud is man’s peculiar vice;God finds it more displeasing—and therefore,the fraudulent are lower, suffering more."(Book 11)

Now, we already know that because Virgil was not born and did not die a Christian, he would not have been allowed into Heaven—but he still presents the moral Christian values of the Renaissance Christian World. Virgil also states that fraud, above all, makes God displeased. It doesn't make "the Gods" displeased. It simply makes "God" displeased. This is not Roman Polytheism, this is Christianity. I think that the fact that Dante is trying very hard to make Virgil seem complicit with Christianity when Virgil actually lived through a time of persecuting Christians terribly ironic and a bit of a stretch.

Virgil's image is completely solidified by Dante's work. We now believe he is a good, independent thinking, philosophical Christian man. When, in reality, Virgil was probably not free thinking at all—as the Aeneid is a work of political propaganda to initiate the era of peace after the civil war. He also, again, was not a Christian and probably either did not know it existed or did not have sympathies towards it.

Virgil's image wasn't only inspired by Dante's Inferno though. Long before Dante's Inferno was written there were even stranger legends and myths about Virgil mostly because of the Eclogues and the Aeneid. Let's take a look at some of them.

During the Medieval Period, Virgil's name was commonly associated with prophecy. This was because of the Eclogues in which Virgil describes the birth of a child that brings in a new, enlightenment and golden age. This, by many Christians, has been interpreted as the birth of Jesus. Many people believe that because of this, Virgil may have championed Christianity before its existence, but it is entirely uncertain as to how it serves as solid evidence.

After this, Virgil's texts were used especially for magical acts during the second century AD. There would be a process in which passages from the texts would be selected, normally at random, to answer philosophical questions on life and death. This spread around the entirety of Europe and ended up in Naples during the 12th and 13th century, possibly inspiring the divinity and understanding of divinity in the image Dante creates for Virgil.

All in all, Virgil's image has changed over time, taking with it the understanding and interpretation of TheAeneid. The Aeneid itself, based on the events that take place in the Iliad, was written not only to rival Homer but to usher in an era of peace and reconciliation in ancient Rome. The values presented as those of morality in the Aeneid have been interpreted to suit the religion of the day—especially when it comes to Renaissance Italy. This was done through taking these legends and having Dante use them to construct a brand new, polished Christian image for Virgil and using the symbols from the Aeneid in order to solidify his claim of this.

The Aeneid has been a book of constant question for hundreds of years. From its epic simile of Aeneas' shield that reminds us so much of the shield of Achilles in the Iliad, to the reflection of Augustus in Aeneas and even to the collapse of Carthage and whether Dido was set up by the Gods. The Aeneid has been analysed over and over again throughout history with many scholars referring to it as a political ploy for peace and redemption. The fact that it may have been left unfinished always makes scholars nervous and well, where it ends is not really how an epic is supposed to. The idea that Virgil may have died before completing it is not that far from what we now take as the possible truth. But there are still questions about the minor changes before its publication, especially regarding what was changed.

From every period of literature and every period of history in the Western World, there have been people theorising on the Aeneid, trying to fill the gaps that Virgil left behind. There have been scholars, poets, writers, professors, podcasters, philosophers and historians giving up their time to study the text meticulously in hope of finding truths.

What we know about the composition of the Aeneid may not be much in terms of fact, but the legends have created an image that will last longer in memory than any possible piece of evidence. It is truly a work of absolute genius that has transcended every age of literature; brought down to us by translation after translation—each one filling the gaps ever so slightly in its own way.