What Are The Similarities Between The Aeneid And Oedipus

The Odyssey, Oedipus the King, and The Aeneid are all great literary works with a universal theme that is still being used to teach today. The author of these individual works, just like any author, uses their stories to convey their views on their beliefs, religion, culture and many other things. With each story, the readers are given lessons and get some sort of insight into the lives of the people and their religious beliefs. Each individual work portrays the views of its religious beliefs based on its time period and culture. These portrayal views in The Odyssey, Oedipus the King, and Aeneid sheds light on the differences that culture and time period brings into religious beliefs. The ancient Greek religion has many different beliefs

In the very beginning of the story, Homer writes “The other gods / Were assembled in the halls of Olympian Zeus, / And the Father of Gods and Men” (1.33-35). With this quote, Homer portrays the views of the hierarchy among the gods. Homer further depicts the hierarchy among the gods when Zeus orders Calypso to release Odysseus so he can head home, showing that when Zeus orders something it must be done. At the same time, Homer points out the gods vices with Calypso mentioning different relationships between humans and gods. Calypso criticizes that gods take mortal women to their beds but when goddess does the same with mortal men there is always a problem. Also in book 5, Hermes says “The man’s not fated to rot here far from his friends. / It’s his destiny to see his dear ones again / And return to his high-gabled Ithacan home” (113-15). This quote portrays the aspect of the religion that Gods and Goddesses cannot change fate, but they can delay it. In The Odyssey, Oedipus the King, and The Aeneid this aspect of the religion is portrayed. All three plays though from different cultures and time period are all about fate. Odysseus is fated to reach his home, Ithaca, Oedipus is fated to kill his father and sleep with his mother, Aeneas is fated to find a new home for the Trojans. In all three plays, the main characters are fated to do something. Also, in all three plays, the gods

In actuality most of the beliefs that Romans had during the time Aeneid was written were the same as Greeks. Probably because Romans took a lot of the Greeks religion when they concurred it in 146 B.C. There are not that many distinctive differences between the Roman and Greek religion except for the names and sometimes in beliefs. In Roman, Zeus is Jupiter, Poseidon is Neptune, Hera is Juno, Aphrodite is Venus, etc. However, Romans did have some gods that were not associated with Greek gods, such as, Janus and Quirinus. The Aeneid and The Odyssey are two great works of a similar story line from different cultures. The fact that The Aeneid and The Odyssey are so similar in their religious aspects is because of the fact that in technicality the two different cultures have the same religion. Although they do have many similarities between the Roman and Greek culture, the Romans did maintain some of their own beliefs such as the household gods. Virgil writes in The Aeneid, “At the heart of the house an ample alter stood, / naked under the skies, / an ancient laurel bending over the shrine, / embracing our household gods within its shade” (2.636-39). Virgil stresses on these household gods especially in Book II: Priam killed in front of the household gods. Another thing about the Roman culture that differs from the Greek is the way they spell names. In this quote: “Even then our soldiers sensed that I was the one, / the target