The Cost of Empire
An empire is, literally, a group of nations or peoples ruled over by an emperor, empress, or other powerful sovereign or government. However, what is sacrificed or given up during the process of creating and maintaining an empire; what is the “cost” of empire? In the Aeneid of Virgil, Virgil depicts these costs from three different perspectives. The first viewpoint is on a personal level; during the course of the epic, Aeneas paid the price when his father, wife, lover, and son of his ally were killed, or killed themselves. The second perspective is on a much grander scale, claiming that cultures and beliefs of other nations will either be retained or destroyed while creating and expanding the empire through almost constant and necessary war. Lastly, a cost is associated not only before, but even after constructing the empire; the emperor or leader will face (almost certainly clandestine) opposition to his methods of the formation or rule of the empire. This premise is largely supported by Virgil himself because the epic in its entirety is both a commendation and more importantly, a criticism of Rome, ingeniously crafted and written right under the emperor’s nose. For these reasons, the cost of empire is defined like so: that in order to create the empire, the pain brought about by the death of many individuals, possibly cherished by the founder, is required; the combination, assimilation or destruction of many other cultures by means of necessary war will occur; and the recognition of the formation of opposition who will contradict the customs of the empire is inevitable.
Throughout the epic, Aeneas suffered the loss of many people dear to him. The first person to pass away was his wife Creusa. During the ...
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...he other, the gate of ivory, a perfect and glittering gate through which spirits send false dreams into the world. Rather than sending Aeneas through the easy exit, Virgil sends him through the gate of ivory. The only reason Anchises would escort Aeneas through a gate of “false dreams” is to evaluate Rome’s future. All of the glories that Anchises prophesied earlier were artifices because (and Virgil once again correlates passages) Rome will eventually be overcome with its desire for expansion and wealth and be destroyed. Therefore, it is easily established that Virgil simply was not only celebrating Rome to please the king, but to secretly critique it as well. Anyone who believes otherwise merely fails to assess the details that Virgil includes in his implications that Rome will eventually fall and its future is not as certain as the Roman people may believe.
Rome was experiencing a great deal of internal turmoil during the period when Virgil wrote the Aeneid. There was somewhat of an identity crisis in Rome as it had no definitive leader, or history. With the ascension of Augustus to the throne, Rome was unified again. Still, it had no great book. The Greeks had their Odyssey, giving them a sense of history and of continuity through time. A commonly held view is that the Aeneid attempts to provide the Romans with this sense of continuity or roots. There is a great deal of textual evidence to support this interpretation. Virgil makes numerous references to the greatness of Rome through "ancient" prophecies. Clearly, the entire poem is an account of the founders of Rome. In some sense, this does make the Aeneid seem as a piece of propaganda. However, upon closer examination, there is another idea that Virgil presents. War is painted as a vicious and bloody, not some glorious event. The image of war condemns the concept of Rome as the all-powerful conqueror of other nations. Not only that, but the strong emphasis on duty is frequently mocked. These underlying ideas would seem to run contrary to the theory that Virgil was simply producing a synthesized history of ancient Romans. In order to determine the true intent of the Aeneid, it is important that both ideas presented be examined.
In The Aeneid there are rich implemented principles such as fate, discipline, and competition which greatly influenced the Roman empire causing it’s rise from obedience to the principles as well as it’s fall from disobedience. Virgil lived during the dawn of the rising sRoman empire, and his book was a catalyst to the greatness that grew within the nation. The Aeneid focused around the principle that fate’s power and dominance overrule human life, which in turn would bring indolence or proactivity depending on the individual’s capacity. Although fate can easily be ripped down as a belief it did many great things for the Romans whether it is real or not. Unfortunately the themes of deceit and trickery also crept into the book’s contents, which
It is clear when reading the Aeneid that Virgil was familiar with the earlier works of Homer, The Iliad and The Odyssey. Virgil, more than just being aware of these earlier works, uses themes and ideas from these poems in his own. Far more than just copying scenes and ideas, Virgil expands and alters these themes to better tell his story, unique from the Greek originals he is drawing from. Virgil reveals what qualities he regards as heroic through the juxtaposition of Aeneas’ character and the negative aspects of the underworld. By looking at which qualities are esteemed and derided respectively, we can identify the qualities that Virgil would like to emphasize positively to his readers. Also, we can argue that Virgil is indeed trying to convey a particular set or morals to those readers. Beyond the underworld, it is possible to clearly identify these traits in the other sections of the poem where Virgil is borrowing and making his own alterations. Using these distinctions we can very clearly derive Virgil's morality from the poem, and see where Virgil's ideal characters veer away from the Greek ideal that came before.
Aeneas also went to fight in the Trojan War. He also was a national hero. He was a great warrior. Both Odysseus and Aeneas were trying to head home.
... wife and home as well as his place in Carthage in the name of the gods, in the name of a quest that does not directly benefit him. From this pursuit, he does not stand to gain spoils, and the most that could be said of his fame would be drawn from his descendents. It is this moral stance, this understanding of universal placement, of purpose, that sets Aeneas apart from other heroes.
As in Book I of "The Aeneid," Book II and Book III are authored by Publius Vergilius Maro, but the entirety of the books is written as exposition delivered by the character Aeneas. Aeneas could thus be considered the "author" of the piece, and his audience is Dido and her Phoenician people. Aeneas narrated the contents of the pieces as a response to Dido's request for his story, and his reluctance apparent in the opening lines suggests that he disagrees with the prospect of recalling such painful memories, but complies regardless. Therefore, Aeneas's motivation in relating his story (and, in a way, Virgil's as well) is to reveal what events transpired on his voyage from Troy to Carthage. His actions during the fall of Troy in particular lend
“I was obliged to memorize the wanderings of a hero named Aeneas, while in the meantime I failed to remember my own erratic ways. I learned to lament the death of Dido, who killed herself for love, while all the time, in the midst of these things, I was dying, separated from you, my God and my Life.
Most of the civilizations throughout history have been taken over or replaced by other civilizations due to disunity and chaos. Although an empire might seem prosperous, the decline and fall of empires are sometimes inevitable. Even though an empire might seem invincible, there are many factors that could lead to the sudden decline or fall of an empire. Over many centuries, historians have composed many reasons, such as weak militaries, economic burdens, dynastic successions, and external enemies, which have been known to contribute to the rise and fall of many once successful empires.
Many people seem to be under the impression that the Aeneid is a celebration of Roman glory, led by the hero of fate Aeneas. I find these preconceived ideas hard to reconcile with my actual reading of the text. For starters, I have a hard time viewing Aeneas as a hero at all. Almost any other main characters in the epic, from Dido to Camilla to Turnus, have more heroic qualities than Aeneas. This is especially noteworthy because many of these characters are his enemies. In addition, Aeneas is presented as a man with no free will. He is not so much bound to duty as he is shielded by it. It offers a convenient way for hum to dodge crucial moral questions. Although this doesn’t necessarily make him a bad person, it certainly makes him a weak one. Of course some will argue that it takes greater moral conviction to ignore personal temptation and act for the good of the people. These analysts are dodging the issue just like Aeneas does. The fact is that Aeneas doesn’t just sacrifice his own personal happiness for the common good; he also sacrifices the past of the Trojan people, most notably when he dishonors the memory of his fallen city by becoming the men he hated most, the Greek invaders. The picture of Aeneas as seen in the end of the Aeneid bears some sticking resemblances to his own depiction of the savage and treacherous Greeks in the early books.
Aeneas is the son of Venus. This fact alone brings about much of the hero in him. Venus, a concerned mother, always looks out for her son. She does everything she thinks will help to ensure his safety and success. At the beginning of his journey from Troy, she prevents his death at sea. Juno has persuaded King Aeolus to cause vicious storms, rocking Aeneas' fleet and nearly killing all of them. Venus then goes to Jupiter and begs him to help Aeneas: Venus appealed to him, all pale and wan, With tears in her shining eyes:
They brave gulping whirlpools and blazing infernos. They withstand the flagrant curses of a dying queen. Transporters of precious civilization, they are described by their captain Aeneas as carrying “gods / Of hearth and home, saved from the enemy” (Virgil I.521-522). Throughout the epic, ships are extremely vital to Aeneas – so much so that Virgil intuitively creates a powerful, unmistakable correlation between the two. In The Aeneid, Aeneas acts like a ship, carrying the weight of the Trojan society to Italy, and suffers like a ship, enduring beat-downs from humans and the gods; in fact, Virgil suggests that Aeneas is a human ship.
In order to try to guess why Virgil believed the Aeneid to be such a failure, it is important to first be familiar with what Virgil was trying to accomplish with the story. Augustus wanted it to be an epic which glorified Rome and ultimately himself. Virgil himself had a passion for Italy and the peace, order, and security that could come as a result of the Augustan age. He had grown up in the midst of civil war and experienced first hand the pain and suffering that it caused. Uniting all Italy under one rule would put an end to civil war and this was Augustus' plan. So in that sense Virgil shared Augustus' vision and was an ideal choice to write the epic.
In addition, the overall theme of the poem highlighted morality, which was a definitive tenet of Greco Roman civilization. In many ways, Virgil wrote the poem as a means of lauding the moral virtues of Roman society and as a personal challenge to outdo Homer’s epic compositions, The Illiad and The Odyssey. Virgil was successful because he had incorporated many of the same tales shared in the works of Homer into one epic poem which presented a linear storyline in the books that detailed the life and times of Aeneas and the Trojans. That being said, Virgil did not stray far from the approach that many writers had used before him; his primary focus throughout the Aeneid was placed squarely upon the back of idealized Greek and Roman moral principles, which were the dedication to ones’ honor, family, and country. By no means is there anything wrong with this approach, but in many ways, the entire poem could be viewed as a “propaganda” piece; while it might have served to enlighten, educate, and create a cohesive and uplifting story for the Roman populace, the poem lacked depth and a more profound exploration of human intricacies. While Virgil’s epic poem has stood the test of time and remains one of the greatest pieces
...e Roman world alone for almost 45 years, or over half a century, was accorded a magnificent funeral, buried in the mausoleum he had built in Rome, and entered the Roman pantheon as Divus Augustus. In his will, he left 1,000 sesterces a piece to the men of the Praetorian Guard, 500 to the urban cohorts, and 300 to each of the legionaries. In death, as in life, Augustus acknowledged the true source of his power. Augustus's ultimate legacy, however, was the peace and prosperity the empire was to enjoy for the next two centuries under the system he initiated. His memory was enshrined in the political ethos of the Imperial age as a blue print of what a good emperor is all about. Although every emperor to follow would adopt his name, there truly would never again be another Caesar Augustus, and only a handful of those that followed would earn genuine comparison with him.
Sullivan emphasizes Virgil’s depiction of the pain in the world he lived in. Dido grieved because she was not faithful in her promise that she had made to her deceased husband. She was gravely aware of her mistake and knew that she had no way of erasing its influence in her life and the lives of the people she was supposed to be protecting. Her sufferings resulted from the gods disagreeing over what Aeneas’ fate should be and not necessarily her own actions. Aeneas had his pietas tested when he arrived at Carthage. Dido was a distraction that got in the way of Aeneas’ ultimate goal, but that does not mean that she meant nothing to him (p. 117). Sullivan believes that Aeneas’ deep love for Dido was evident in any passages of the epic and should not be written off. Dido was one of Aeneas’ greatest sufferings and he did not want to leave her in Carthage, but he was drawn to by the divine plan of the gods. When he ventures into the Underworld and is met by Dido, he learns what she did to herself and he broke down and began to cry. This proves to Sullivan that she was more than just a stumbling block in Aeneas’ path. Dido was a lover and one of Aeneas’ most painful memories. The pain of leaving her was almost too much for Aeneas to bare, so much so that he resisted the gods and wanted to stay. His personal feelings told him to stay and love Dido for the rest of his life, but his pietas and duty helped him