Chapter 23 Lecture Two of Two

The Legend of Aeneas

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The Legend of Aeneas

• Augustus sponsored the arts to solidify his new age and to make it appear to be a continuation of the old Republic

• Sponsored poets and historians– Livy– Vergil

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THE LEGEND OF AENEASVergil and the Aeneid

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Vergil and the Aeneid

• To rival the Homeric epics• Tells the story of the founding of the Roman

people in Italy after the Trojan war• Aeneas

– Son of Anchises and Aphrodite– His story begins in the Iliad– Saved by Poseidon

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Fig. 23.7Aeneas escapes with Anchises and Ascanius/Iulus.

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Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples; University of Wisconsin–MadisonPhoto Archive

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Vergil and the Aeneid

• Aeneas’s adventures along the way• Son Iulus

– Augustus’s clan, the Julians, claimed ancestry to Aeneas through Iulus

• Aeneas founded Alba Long– Romulus and Remus would found Rome later– Aeneas, the paterfamilias of all of Rome

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OBSERVATIONSAn Epic of National Rebirth

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Epic of National Rebirth

• Structure of the Aeneid– First half like the wanderings of the Odyssey– Second half like the war epic of the Iliad

• But the Aeneid painstakingly written; the Homeric epics more fluid and improvised – Aeneid is purposeful propaganda for a national

cause– Characters have a deeper internal life

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Epic of National Rebirth

• The old numina couldn’t express the new conditions

• The Aeneid based on the Stoic philosophy of universal destiny and a guiding intelligence in the cosmos– The Stoic logos– The new order of Rome is fated, and Roman

imperial rule is divine will

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Epic of National Rebirth

• Aeneas’s adventures have a purpose, to prepare him to the be pater of the new nation

• Some can be included in the new nation, others must be left behind or eliminated

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PERSPECTIVE 23Aeneas, Augustus, Mussolini

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Aeneas, Augustus, Mussolini

• The ara pacis Augustae, discovered and displayed by Mussolini, got caught up in fascist Italy's myth about itself.

• As Augustus renewed Rome, so Mussolini fancied himself doing the same for modern Italy.

• Mussolini had planned for the construction of a bronze statue of himself as Hercules, but the project was never realized.

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Fig. 23aScene from the ara pacis Augustae

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Photo Dagli Orti from Kobal Collection, New York

Fig. 23 1930 Italian Stamp

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End

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