The Greeks and Achilles
The opening of Virgil’s epic [“I sing of warfare and a man of war” or “ I sing of arms and of the man”] is a skillful allusion to Homer’s Iliad [“Rage—Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles”]. Both rely on nouns. Discuss how the two interact in both works. Just as Homer used the first lines of the Iliad and Odyssey to announce the main themes of those poems, Virgil presents the two main themes of the Aeneid in the first line.
What are these two central themes? In The Aeneid, Virgil’s first two lines “I sing of warfare and a man at war. / He came to Italy by destiny. ” Like with Homer’s The Iliad and The Odyssey, Virgil’s central theme for The Aeneid is war, though in a vastly different light than that of Homer’s two epics. With Aeneid, the central character Aeneas fleas Troy during a darkened time for his native city, when it is being ravaged in a war between the Greeks and Achilles.
The line He came to Italy by destiny tells me that The Aeneid’s focus is central to fate and destiny and how so many people during this time put a lot of their energy believing in, and raging wars in the name of both. What universal force is responsible for Aeneas’s sufferings as an exile (see line 3)? In accordance with this universal force, what is the purpose of his sufferings? Land and sea are what are responsibile for Aeneas sufferings as an exile while he made the journey from Troy to Italy.
Aeneas’ suffering was at the hands of Juno, who was angry that with Aeneas’ arrival into Carthage meant that the fate of her most favorite city would soon be teasted when the war made it’s way from his beloved Troy, where he was fleeing from, to Carthage. Explain the reasons for Juno’s hatred of the Trojans. Juno’s hatred towards the other Trojan’s was because the arrival of another Trojan, Paris, voted in a beauty contest against Juno, a contest that she ended up losing.
Compare and contrast Homer’s description of the shield of Achilles in the Iliad (XVIII. 572ff. ) with Virgil’s description of the shield of Aeneas in the Aeneid (VIII. 24ff. ). Both Aeneas and Achilles are given shields that help to defend against their enemies. With Aeneas, he is given a shield to help protect Rome from an invasion, whereas Achilles is given a shield to face off and carry out his revenge against Hector. Both similar in their uses are vastly different in design. For Achilles, his holds engravings of common life during his time.
