Virgil


 * Study Questions for Virgil**


 * 1) Identify similarities between the //Iliad// and //Odyssey// and Virgil's //Aeneid.//
 * 2) According to Aeneas' narration to Dido, how did the Trojans decide to bring the horse inside the walls of the city?
 * 3) Know the Roman name of the gods who have an important role in the //Aeneid.//
 * 4) Describe the fall of Troy as Aeneas narrates it. Describe Aeneas' mission.
 * 5) Understand the challenges of the translators because ... "In the Latin original, each word has a meaning that may not become clear until several more words have been read. This is an elegant, complex, literary language that does not lend itself to translation." (Diane Thompson)
 * 6) Recognize the conflict between duty and love that forces Aeneas to make a decision.
 * 7) Explain how the love affair between Aeneas and Dido exemplifies the conflict between political duty and passion.
 * 8) Show how Aeneas is an example for men of his time to serve the state (or the community) rather than personal goals.
 * 9) Book VI of the Aeneid presents the Underworld as a place for purification, punishment, prophetic information, rest and recreation between lifetimes. The Odyssey presents Hades as a vague and boring place where everyone goes after death and no one leaves. However, the dead have some kinds of knowledge that the living do no. Compare/contrast these two visions of the underworld and try to make some interesting point about their differences. Support your ideas with specific examples from Book VI of the Aeneid and Books XI and XXIV of the Odyssey.


 * AENEAS--A NEW KIND OF HERO** (as described by Diane Thompson) Aeneas' dominant trait is piety. Piety for Aeneas did not mean faith so much as obedience and careful attention to the will of the gods, especially Jupiter, so that he could do the right thing in the right way. This piety expressed itself in right relations to the gods, to one's family, and to the state, as well as in carrying out rituals in a correct, thoughtful manner. Aeneas is:
 * Pious**: Aeneas carries his household gods from Troy to Italy; he holds Memorial Games for Anchises; he immediately obeys Mercury's message to leave Dido. Steadfast: He feels Dido's grief, but is unmoved in his actions.
 * Compassionate**: He stops the boxing match when Entellus is overwhelming Dares; he grieves for his dead soldiers.
 * Fair:** He awards the prizes fairly during the memorial games. Brave: He fights bravely at Troy, only stopping because Venus tells him to leave; he is equally brave combating Turnus in Latium.
 * Willing to cooperate with Destiny:** He learns the future in the Underworld and acts willingly to bring it about. Paternal: It is Aeneas' fatherly duty to Ascanius to leave Dido and found a new nation for his descendants.
 * A Leader:** Aeneas soothes his weary followers after the storm, "our god will give an end to this as well"; he is concerned with feeding and comforting them; in Italy he forms alliances and leads the fighting.
 * Sensitive:** When Dido asks him to tell about the fall of Troy, he tells her "O Queen--too terrible for tongues the pain/you ask me to renew"(II 4-5); he is aware of the "tears of things," the pain of human life.
 * Emotional:** Aeneas narrates the fall of Troy with great feeling, such as, "the first time savage horror took me" (II 751).


 * The Roman gods**
 * Apollo - (same name in Greek) sun god; son of Jupiter and Latona; the god of prophecy; brother of Diana
 * Cupid - (Eros) son of Venus
 * Diana - (Artemis) goddess of the moon, the hunt and the woods; daughter of Jupiter and Latona; sister of Apollo Iris - rainbow goddess; Juno's messenger
 * Juno - (Hera) wife and sister of Jupiter; daughter of Saturn; god of marriage; chief goddess of Carthage; hates Trojans because of Judgment of Paris
 * Jupiter - (Zeus) chief deity; husband and brother of Juno; son of Saturn
 * Lares- household, hearth-centered, ancestral gods, which Aeneas brings along with the Penates from Troy to Italy; these, along with the Penates, are small enough for Anchises to carry while Aeneas carries him
 * Penates- household gods or gods of the state; Aeneas brings the Trojan state gods with him from Troy to Italy
 * Mars - (Ares) god of war; son of Jupiter
 * Mercury -(Hermes) messenger Minerva - (Athena)-goddess of wisdom, battle and household arts such as weaving
 * Neptune - (Poseidon) god of the sea; brother of Jupiter; helped build the walls of Troy, but King Laomedon, Priam's father, refused to pay him, so he became an enemy of Troy
 * Saturn - (Chronos) previous chief god; father of Jupiter, who deposed him
 * Venus - (Aphrodite) mother of Aeneas and of Cupid; goddess of love; she constantly worries about her son Aeneas, despite Jupiter's assurances that he will be fine
 * Vulcan - (Hephaestus) husband of Venus, god of the forge and fire
 * Trojan Characters:**
 * Aeneas - Trojan prince, son of Venus and Anchises, father of Ascanius, lover of Dido, ancestor of the Roman people
 * Anchises - Aeneas' father; carried by Aeneas from fallen Troy
 * Ascanius - (also Iulus) son of Aeneas and Creusa
 * Creusa - Aeneas' wife who dies during the flight out of Troy
 * Hecuba - queen of Troy, wife of Priam
 * Laocoon - Trojan priest; tried to warn the Trojans about the Trojan horse by thrusting a spear against it; killed by serpents
 * Priam - king of Troy; killed by Pyrrhus (Neoptolemus)
 * Polydorus - Trojan who was treacherously killed by the king of Thrace; buried under a bush which bled when Aeneas tried to tear off a branch; his ghost warns Aeneas to flee from Thrace
 * Polydorus - Trojan who was treacherously killed by the king of Thrace; buried under a bush which bled when Aeneas tried to tear off a branch; his ghost warns Aeneas to flee from Thrace


 * Tyrian characters:**
 * Anna - Dido's sister; encouraged Dido in her affair with Aeneas
 * Dido - queen and founder of Carthage, widow of Sychaeus; falls in love with Aeneas; kills herself when he leaves; also called Elissa
 * Sychaeus - Dido's dead first husband; they are reunited in the Underworld
 * Greek Characters**
 * Pyrrhus - son of Achilles, also named Neoptolemus; during the destruction of Troy, he killed a son of Priam and Hecuba in front of their eyes, and then killed Priam
 * Sinon - a deceitful Greek who pretended to flee from the Greeks to the Trojans, told lying tales about the Trojan Horse Ulysses (Odysseus)- devised the Trojan Horse that destroyed Troy