Is Aeneas a Good Warrior Essays - 2896 Words

Is Aeneas a Good Warrior? I sing of arms and of the man, fated to be an exile, begins Virgil, and it is on precisely the issue of this man of arms that critical debate in recent years has tended to centre. Scholars continue to disagree on whether or not Aeneas is presented as a good soldier, although the question itself is certainly far from black and white, complicated by the culturally relative nature of terms such as conflict and courage, as well as by the rather oblique definition that good itself holds. In this essay I will attempt to resolve these complexities and ambiguities by juxtaposing Aeneas against the Roman and Homeric ideals of the warrior, exemplified by Aemilius Paullus and Odysseus respectively. I will†¦show more content†¦Plutarch, for instance, emphasises exactly this in his description of the life of the potentate Aemilius Paullus who stoically accepts the death of his son and heir as retribution for the Romans successful military campaign against the Macedonians.2 Equally, the p resentation of Aeneas in Book Four can be seen to parallel that of Odysseus in Book Nineteen of the Odyssey, where the reader is told that, in spite of his wifes tears, the heros eyes were steady.3 Aeneas, then, does conform to both the Roman and Homeric paradigms in his ability to endure the sufferings that Fate has allotted him. And yet his chief characteristic is not his endurance, as is the case with Odysseus, but rather his pietas, a quality essential for a Roman warrior. Time and time again in the Aeneid he is referred to as pius Aeneas, famous for his devotion(6, p.145), so the Sibyl extols. This devotion is threefold in that it is not only religious and extends to both his family and to his duty as Father of Rome. The latter of these has already been demonstrated by his separation from Dido, in which he subordinates his personal wishes in order to fulfil his destiny, while one can see the first two aspects of this pietas at work quite clearly in Book Five, in which the funer al games, held in honour of the divine father of Aeneas (5, p. 122), combine aShow MoreRelatedCourageous Acts by Heroes in Ancient Literature1546 Words   |  6 Pageswritten by Sophocles in 400BC. It is mainly focused on a brother sister’s relationship. At last I will talk about the epic Latin poem â€Å" The Aeneid† by Virgil is a legendary story about Aeneas travels to Italy. In Italy, Aeneas’s descendants would go on to found Rome. Aeneas, a prince and a skilled and courageous warrior, has either the option of fighting to the death to gain personal glory and fame or denying his own glorious death so that the Trojan people and civilization sustains beyond the burningRead MoreFate : Fate And Fate In Virgils Aeneid1637 Words   |  7 PagesVirgil’s Aeneid, tells the story of Aeneas, the hero and object of fate who is also well known for fitting every description of a classic epic hero. He is of noble and supernatural birth, he faces and successfully o vercomes temptations, and he acts as the vessel the gods wish him to be. Although Aeneas frequently makes his own life decisions, it can still be argued that no single aspect of his life was untouched by fate, predictions, or prophecy. 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Some of th e most well known heroes are: Achilles, Odysseus, Aneius, Socrates, Gilgamesh, Beowulf, and King Arthur. Achilles was a well known Greek hero. He was a warrior that faught long