Aeneas, the Anti-hero of Aeneid

Aeneas, the Anti-hero of Aeneid

Many people seem to be under the impression that the Aeneid is a celebration of Roman glory, led by the hero of fate Aeneas. I find these preconceived ideas hard to reconcile with my actual reading of the text. For starters, I have a hard time viewing Aeneas as a hero at all. Almost any other main characters in the epic, from Dido to Camilla to Turnus, have more heroic qualities than Aeneas. This is especially noteworthy because many of these characters are his enemies. In addition, Aeneas is presented as a man with no free will. He is not so much bound to duty as he is shielded by it. It offers a convenient way for hum to dodge crucial moral questions. Although this doesn’t necessarily make him a bad person, it certainly makes him a weak one. Of course some will argue that it takes greater moral conviction to ignore personal temptation and act for the good of the people. These analysts are dodging the issue just like Aeneas does. The fact is that Aeneas doesn’t just sacrifice his own personal happiness for the common good; he also sacrifices the past of the Trojan people, most notably when he dishonors the memory of his fallen city by becoming the men he hated most, the Greek invaders. The picture of Aeneas as seen in the end of the Aeneid bears some sticking resemblances to his own depiction of the savage and treacherous Greeks in the early books.

The classic definition of a hero includes one who is endowed with great courage and strength, and is celebrated for their bold exploits. In some ways Aeneas is very similar to other heroes encountered in other classic texts, but with critical differences. Gilgamesh, perhaps the first hero chronologically, is a good place to...

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...azards of human nature. Perhaps it was even a message intentionally hidden in the text to bring a sobering light on the perceptions of war as honorable and glorious. It might have even been a way for Virgil to express his resentment for having written a work that he knew would be viewed as propaganda. I think it is very telling that Virgil tried to burn the epic on his deathbed, signaling not only that he was not happy with it, but maybe that he regretted having written it with Aeneas cast as a hero.

Works Cited and Consulted

Fuller, Mary. "Forgetting the Aeneid." American Literary History 4:3 (1992): 517-38.

Silvestris, Bernardus. Commentary on the First Six Books of Virgil's Aeneid. Translated by Schreiber and Maresca. University of Nebraska Press. London, 1979.

Virgil. The Aeneid. Translated by Robert Fitzgerald. New York: Vintage Books, 1990.