Question about Vergil's "Aeneid"

[pecksniff]

Did Vergil invent the connection between Romans and Trojans? Or was it already part of Roman folklore?

 

[rae121452]

honey, you need to catch up on some jacqueline susann, mickey spillane and stephen king before your wig catches on fire.

 

[pecksniff]

honey, you need to catch up on some jacqueline susann, mickey spillane and stephen king before your wig catches on fire.

Got pretty much a complete collection of King. Never read any Spillane. Never even heard of Susann.

 

[NemoNautilus]

Did Vergil invent the connection between Romans and Trojans? Or was it already part of Roman folklore?

It was already a part of folklore, although the characters of Aeneas and Queen Dido were certainly fleshed out by Vergil. I believe there is mention of Aeneas in the Iliad.

 

[pecksniff]

I believe there is mention of Aeneas in the Iliad.

Oh, yeah, I knew that. Of course, Homer says nothing about him surviving the fall of Troy and traveling to Italy -- the war is still going on at the end of the Iliad.

 

[NemoNautilus]

Oh, yeah, I knew that. Of course, Homer says nothing about him surviving the fall of Troy and traveling to Italy -- the war is still going on at the end of the Iliad.

Homer's audience wouldn’t have cared what happened to the defeated Trojans. In what year was the Iliad written? It’s been too many years since I studied it. Vergil was commissioned under the reign of Augustus - first century bc?

 

[pecksniff]

In what year was the Iliad written?

Probably in the 8th Century BC. Of course, many scholars believe that was a compilation of verses written over the centuries. I've even seen a theory that "homer" is just an archaic Greek word for "poet."

 

[oggbashan]

Did Vergil invent the connection between Romans and Trojans? Or was it already part of Roman folklore?

He took a myth and embellished it to create a heroic past for Rome. It doesn't agree with the myth of Romulus and Remus.


But Romans often created historic heroes. According to Julius Caesar, he was descended from the Roman Goddess Venus. Most of his contemporaries didn't believe him, insisting he was just a jumped-up upstart, not one of the main patrician families of Rome.

 

[pecksniff]

He took a myth and embellished it to create a heroic past for Rome. It doesn't agree with the myth of Romulus and Remus.

Vergil made Aeneas the ancestor of Romulus and Remus -- that was the whole point of the story. How did that contradict the folklore?

But Romans often created historic heroes. According to Julius Caesar, he was descended from the Roman Goddess Venus. Most of his contemporaries didn't believe him, insisting he was just a jumped-up upstart, not one of the main patrician families of Rome.

The gens Julia really were ancient nobility, though impoverished by Caesar's time.

 

[oggbashan]

Vergil made Aeneas the ancestor of Romulus and Remus -- that was the whole point of the story. How did that contradict the folklore?



The gens Julia really were ancient nobility, though impoverished by Caesar's time.

But Virgil's story was fake history, designed to make Romans feel a connection with TRoy and against the Greeks who had an older civilisation.

Was Caesar really part of the Gens Julia, or did he just claim he was? Some said he wasn't. just adopted into the clan when he started to rise.

Contemporaries doubted his claims to ancestors. As they doubted Virgil's history as fiction designed to make Romans feel older and of a more distinguished lineage than they were. Virgil was one of many creating a heroic past for Rome that flattered their contemporaries. (Like Hollywood accounts of WW2 where John Wayne won everything - the US's achievements in WW2 were great, but the mythology portrayed by Hollywood was more fiction than facts, even though the facts were good enough)

A more modern version is Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome with Horatius defending the bridge. You wouldn't know from that that the Romans lost the battle and were occupied...

 

[pecksniff]

But Virgil's story was fake history, designed to make Romans feel a connection with TRoy and against the Greeks who had an older civilisation.

Funny thing -- when you read the Iliad, it appears that the Trojans are Greeks. They speak the same language as the Achaians, worship the same gods, follow the same customs, fight battles in the same way, and nobody in the story ever encounters anything you might call culture shock.

 

[pecksniff]

Was Caesar really part of the Gens Julia, or did he just claim he was? Some said he wasn't. just adopted into the clan when he started to rise.

Hm. Never heard that before.

 

[oggbashan]

Hm. Never heard that before.

It was written before he became pre-eminent and ruler of Rome, by his rivals who supported Pompey.