Is Virgil’s Aeneid an Anti-War Poem?
Virgil opens the ‘Aeneid’ with the words ARMA virumque cano ( I sing of arms and of men). The central role that war plays in this Roman epic is made apparent from the very first word of the ‘Aeneid’ by the emphatic placing of the word arma at the very beginning of the poem. A fair chunk of Virgil’s ‘Aeneid’ is set on the battle field but its violent and gory descriptions of death and its frequent battles alone cannot make this poem an anti-war poem. Virgil does not merely use the notion of war to further his plot but deals with many types and aspects of war throughout the entirety of his book; mythological wars; recent wars; their effects; their causes; and often one is able to find Virgil’s own opinion on such a matter, subtly incorporated into the thick of things. What messages does Virgil try to convey to his readers, in what ways does he do this and can we argue that the ‘Aeneid’ is an anti-war poem rather than an epic that simply narrates particularly tragic wars?
The first war in which Virgil goes into detail is the Trojan War which he dedicates an entire book to. Aeneas recounts the fall of Troy whilst in the company of Dido in book two of the ‘Aeneid’ and explains how the Greeks managed to sack Troy and how Aeneas and his men managed to escape to safety. Aeneas describes many horrific deaths in this flashback such as that of Priam’s son, Polites in which we hear that “he finally appeared before his parents’ eyes and fell before their faces and poured out his life with much of his blood” . As opposed to condemning war, this brutal account is more likely to have been described in such a manner as to flaunt Virgil’s literary ability and smooth use of language. Aeneas’ account is for descriptive and informative purposes. Book two is essential in linking the foundation of Rome back to Troy and is also able to link Rome to what much of the Ancient World believed was the greatest war of all time. Virgil’s handling of the Trojan War does create sympathy for his protagonist but is not intended to criticise the act of war in general.
The two opposing attitudes to war in the ‘Aeneid’ are personified in the characters of Aeneas and Turnus. Aeneas symbolises the traditional Roman ideal of virtue and piety which Augustus was trying t...
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...garding war and their empire. Most of the anti-war propaganda in the ‘Aeneid’ is aimed directly at the Roman public and so to its contemporary audience, this epic would have seemed far more critical of war than it might to a foreign audience. The frequent losses of life and bloody descriptions in the poem carry strong connotations of death and disaster throughout most of the story. However such a topic and style of narration was borrowed from Homer and not used solely to deter people from war. But the two words that frame the poem, arma and umbras, adequately outline Virgil’s main point: any story that begins with arma will end in the umbras (the shades).
Bibliography
Virgil, ‘Aeneid’, trans. with intro. D. West (Penguin Classics: London 2003)
‘Collins Latin Dictionary plus Grammar’ (Harper Collins: Glasgow 1997)
Hardie, P. , ‘Greece and Rome – New Surveys in the Classics No.28 : Virgil’ (Oxford University Press: Oxford 1998)
Mackail, J. W. , ‘Virgil and his Meaning to the World of Today’ (The Plimpton Press: Massachusetts 1922)
All Latin original texts from: http://vergil.classics.upenn.edu/workspace/display_frame.html All Latin texts translated by myself
Rengakos, Antonios. Homertext und die Hellenistichen Dichter. Hermes. Einzelschriften, Heft 64. Stuttgart, F. Steiner, 1993.
Braund, Susanna Morton. “Virgil and the Cosmos: Religious and Philosophical Ideas.” The Cambridge Companion to Virgil. Charles Martindale, ed. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1997. 204-221.
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Livy. The Rise of Rome: Books One to Five. Trans. T. J. Luce. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Riggsby, A. M. (n.d.). Cicero Texts. Retrieved March 13, 2011, from University of Texas Classics Department: http://www.utexas.edu/depts/classics/documents/Cic.html
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When Virgil was writing the Aeneid he gleaned his theory from Greek and Roman mythology. An example of this is Charon, the...
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