Virgil’s Aeneid recounts events after the fall of Troy (9th century BCE), and written as a secondary, or literary, epic by Virgil in 14CE. Out of the destruction of Troy came an heroic figure who would found a new state. The Aeneid is a story of return that is providentially ruled by the gods. Aeneas’ story is one of founding and rebirth that is very different from the Homeric epics, but borrows from them in important ways.

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The following questions should help you begin thinking about the major themes, characters, and ideas in the primary text.

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The journey of Aeneas is typical in an epical tradition. In the Aeneid, Virgil presents the founding of a new empire and the story of its patriarch by manipulating history to show the influence of Greek culture on the Romans, but also to illustrate Rome’s new order and the death of Greek/Trojan ideology and way of life. Aeneas, the typical epic hero, must found the new empire by killing the old, and its representative, Turnus.

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From my own twentieth-century standpoint, the relationship between Aeneas and Dido is anything but a facile matter. Aeneas, more than Dido, is ruled by fate — his job is ultimately more important than his social life. Dido, while the ruler of Carthage, does not have as rigid a destiny as Aeneas; therefore, she was able to forsake her duty for her “husband.” So, as is most often the case, the woman forsakes her career and ambitions for the sake of love — thus propagating the view so prevalent within our society: her work is never as important as his. In addition to Dido’s sacrifice, a lack of communication, responsibility, and bad choices constitute Aeneas’ and Dido’s relationship.

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