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Many themes surround and encapsulate the essence in which Virgil penned The Aeneid as a response to Homer’s Odyssey. According to many acclaimed scholars, The Aeneid is a carbon copy of The Odyssey. In my opinion, Aeneas and Odysseus are two different heroes with different themes, goals, and destined fates. As far as themes go in The Aeneid, we see how 1) Juno’s anger was never appeased, how 2) Aeneas fulfilled his destiny by becoming one of the founding fathers of Rome and how 3) Aeneas embodies Roman attributes just like his father, Anchises, prophesied earlier on in the epic. Now, were these themes realized/resolved or left unresolved by Virgil at the conclusion of The Aeneid? Let’s take a look.
From the beginning of the epic poem, The Aeneid, Juno, the sister and wife of Jupiter, seems that her anger towards the Trojans and Aeneas subdued, but never ceased. Nonetheless, I believe Juno’s anger will remain in the pages of the poem and in Roman history. A prime example of Juno’s insatiable anger can be noted when Virgil says, “Baleful Juno in her sleepless rage.” (I. 8) From there, we get a small, but a potent glimpse of Juno’s anger. Throughout the poem, it seems that Juno does everything in her power along with Venus to prolong Aeneas’s destined arrival to Italy. However, Juno’s actions were not without reason, because Virgil tells us that Juno’s anger emanates and remains without resolution because “Hidden away, the judgment Paris (a Trojan) gave, / Snubbing her loveliness; the race she hated;” (I. 40-1) and also not privy to how she, “cared more for Carthage (her beloved city) / Than for any walled city of the earth,” (I. 24-5) that was fated to fall to Rome and eventually be destroyed. Juno did not take such a fateful prophecy well, yielding her to delay Aeneas’ arrival to Italy, by any means necessary. Hence, Virgil never appeasing or resolving Juno’s anger by the end of the epic. Subsequently, shifting our attention to Aeneas’s destiny as Virgil polarizes Juno’s restless anger at the fall of her beloved city of Carthage.
When Aeneas arrived at Carthage, he fell in love with Dido, but that didn’t keep him from fulfilling his fated destiny by setting sail to Italy to become one of the founding fathers of Rome. After Aeneas consummated out of wedlock with Dido, she assumed that they were married, whereas Aeneas denied such a claim. However, Aeneas needed to fulfill his realized fated destiny and leave Carthage to sail away to establish Rome. To help him realize his destiny, Mercury appears and gently pushes Aeneas in a dream reminding him that, “Woman’s a thing / Forever fitful and forever changing.” (IV. 791-2) In layman's terms, Mercury is telling Aeneas that women are plenty, everywhere, and forever-changing, and that it is time to leave Carthage and sail to Italy to fulfill his destiny of founding Rome. Now, on his way to fulfill his destiny of founding Rome, that, by the way, it is realized by the end of the poem when Aeneas “sank his blade in fury in Turnus’ chest.” (XII, 1295) as his last feat to establish his fate as one of the founding fathers of Rome. Which in turn, circles back to Juno’s anger; when Dido pulls out the blade, she stabbed herself, which is, “Aflush with red blood, drenched her hands.” (IV, 922) Her hands are not only drenched in her blood but with the blood of her beloved Carthage that died along with her -- provoked by Aeneas’ departure to fulfill and flesh out his realized destiny to found Rome; enraging Juno.
Aeneas always embodied Roman attributes. A prime example of this is when, Venus, Aeneas’ mother, presented him with a shield Vulcan forged for Aeneas at Venus’ request. Vulcan “shaped a vast shield, one that might alone / Be proof against all missiles of the Latins;” (VIII. 601-610) Apart from such divine militant artifact, engraved on that shield Vulcan forged for Aeneas, Virgil notes that the shield was engraved with the threat of Mettius, Augustus and the Battle of Actium, the abduction of the Sabines and the female wolf who nurses Romulus and Remus. These are just a few of the destined events Aeneas’ predecessors would encounter in their feat to keep expanding the Roman Empire. With such divine shield, Aeneas will “not hesitate to challenge / Arrogant Laurentines or savage Turnus” (VIII. 830-1), thus Aeneas not only entrenching in battle but holding, protecting and representing himself with a divine shield that recalls Rome’s already destined history in the making. At this point, there is no doubt that Rome will be founded. As a result, Aeneas does truly live up to Anchises’ expectation to “impose the rule of law, / To spare the conquered, battle down the proud.” (VI.1153-4) realizing and imposing Roman attributes by the end of the poem, dictated by Anchesis and signified by Vulcan’s divine shield.
The Aeneid is loaded with many themes that do resemble modern-day politics and governmental agencies in society and so forth. But above all, I believe it is crucial to understand how all these themes play a factor not only in the pages of this epic poem, The Aeneid but into our daily lives. Well, not so much in the form of war, treacherous prophecies, and sacrificial killings, but in the manner in which we learn to keep anger at bay by promoting peace and equality, setting and keeping goals (a form of our destiny) and to remain humble by practicing our appropriated cultural attributes, just as the Romans in The Aeneid did.
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