Heroes In The Aeneid

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Recommended: Modern conception of a hero

An Imperfect Epic Hero

Every culture has heroes. A hero is an individual to be admired and exulted because of his exemplification of the greatest virtues of the culture that he represents. In ancient Rome, the hero in a Virgil’s work, the Aeneid, is an outcome of both the culture from which the hero comes, and the culture of the author. Roman heroic values are reflected in both the actions of Aeneas and his motivations. In nowadays society, we tend to think a hero like someone who is courageous and valorous who has exceptional achievements. When reading The Aeneid one realizes that Aeneas expresses many heroic virtues. In fact, Aeneas is compassionate, encouraging, decisive, duty-bound and peaceful.
It is very common in the news to hear about people who sacrifice their comfort to make sure that others are comfortable. Aeneas is one of these people. When the storm caused by Juno wrecked their boat, Aeneas once he reached the shore, he went out to look for members of his crew that were missing and also brought some food back to his men. In addition, he even went to get more food before eating anything himself. This shows how unselfish and compassionate that Aeneas is. This is one most important characteristic that contemporary heroes exhibit. At the top of this Aeneas is very kind and faithful
Even during the hard time of the storm, Aeneas is encouraging to his comrades and he cheers them up. This shades light upon his resilience and faithfulness to his duty and also to his comrades. This shows us that Aeneas is not only a hero but also a great leader who leads by example. He is a type of leader who shows his followers that he is not afraid to do what he wants them to do.

In the Aeneid, Virgil tries to connect the foundation to ot...

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... are other significant authentications for his epic hero nature.
Though this is the case some people may not agree that Aeneas was an epic hero for simply the fact they do not like him. For instance, some people may not like Aeneas because he leaves Dido, but there was no way in his destiny that one of the founders of Rome was going to live happily ever after with the queen and founder of the Carthage kingdom. Furthermore, some other people may not like Aeneas because he doesn't seem to have the physical prowess of Achilles, but he certainly slaughters plenty of the enemy as it is shown through the Aeneid. All these do not undermine in any way the heroic traits of Aeneas such as compassion, decisiveness, piety to name but a few. In all these reinforce the fact that Aeneas is a human not a divine being; consequently he is not perfect but he is still an epic hero.

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