 Hello fellow followers of Christ and welcome to the show that introduces you to the men and women behind history's greatest works of literature. Come along every week as we explore these renowned authors, the times and genre in which they wrote, why scholars praise their writing and how we as Catholics should read and understand their works. I'm Joseph Pierce and this is The Authority. Hello and welcome to The Authority where this week we will be talking about the great Roman poet Virgil. So Virgil, two previous ones we talked about ancient Greek culture and now we've moved on to Roman culture, pre-Christian Roman culture. But Virgil lived in the century before Christ. So he was born around 70 BC and died in 21 BC, so just 21 years before the birth of Christ. He was best known in many respects for his ecologs and his georgics, which are pastoral poetry, so poetry about, say, country life, shepherds, etc. But what he's best known for, and I think quite rightly, is his epic, the Aeneid. So, you know, epic poetry tells a narrative story with a panoramic sweep of history, great deal of drama. So what Virgil's doing here is following in the noble tradition of Homer. In fact, if it wasn't for Homer, there would be no Virgil. In fact, if certainly it wasn't for the Iliad and the Odyssey, there would be no Aeneid, as we shall see. So the Aeneid, as I said, was written between 29 BC and about the time Virgil's death, it was unfinished when Virgil died, so 20 or so years before the birth of Christ. It's a national epic. In other words, it's a patriotic poem, extolling the virtues of Rome as a nation, but also creating a national myth, a story about the creation of Rome. How did Rome come into being? So this is the story of how Rome is founded, and of course, rises to become the most powerful city, the most powerful power in the known world at the time. There's a suggestion that's sort of written as a work for hire. In other words, that the emperor desired this patriotic epic to be written, and Virgil being the greatest poet of the time was one asked to write it. So there's an element of, you know, is there an emersionary motive to Virgil's writing this? And if so, you know, what were his feelings about the work? We'll return to that a bit later. But as regards, as we said, if the Aeneid would be unthinkable, literally unthinkable, as we shall see, if it hadn't been for the Iliad and the Odyssey. So we need to talk about the most relationship between Rome and Greece. So there's a scene from a Monty Python film. What have the Romans ever done for us? And there's a whole list then of the things that the Romans have actually done as building the foundations of Western civilization. Except of course, the Romans did not build the foundations of Western civilization. That was built by the Greeks, as we've seen, right? Our Homer was writing many centuries before Virgil. So we should be asking what have the Romans ever done for us? We should ask now what have the Greeks ever done for the Romans? Because we will see an actual fact, although the Romans invaded Greece, defeated Greece in war, the Roman Empire became the most powerful empire ever. Greece basically went into decline and was defeated militarily. Culturally, the Greeks conquered the Romans because the Romans adopted the Greek gods. They gave them different names, but it's the same Greek gods. So now in Rome, you have two layers of gods. You have the universal gods that they basically take it from the Greeks, Zeus and company, the Romans called him Jupiter, but it's the same God. And then the local household gods, the local gods, so they have these two sort of paganisms, polytheisms coming together, but also Greek philosophy. So the Romans are very platonic. The ideas of Plato have very much become the ideas of Rome. The philosophy of Athens becomes the philosophy of Rome. So in terms of reason, the Romans have been conquered by the Greeks in terms of philosophy, they've been conquered by the Greeks in terms of theology, they've been conquered by the Greeks. And in terms of storytelling, they've been conquered by the Greeks because as we will see that the Aeneid has its roots in the Iliad, Homer's Iliad, and it's specifically in the character of Aeneas, the name Aeneid means the story of Aeneas. So who is Aeneas? Well, I'm going to read here who Aeneas is. And I'm reading not from the Aeneid that Virgil wrote, but from Homer's Iliad. Come now, we ourselves may take him out of danger and make sure that Zeus shall not be angered by his death at Achilles' hands. His fate is to escape, to ensure that a great line of darterness, as the Progences, may not unceded perish from the world. For Zeus cared more for darterness of all the sons he had had by women. So Zeus cares more about Troy, the founder of Troy. And now Zeus has turned against the family of Priam, so the ruler of Troy because of Priam's acceptance of the elopement of Helen with Paris. So Priam has been accessory to sin, that's why God turned against him. Therefore Aeneas and his sons and theirs will be lords over Trojans born here after. Okay, so what Virgil takes as his inspiration for the Aeneid is those lines from the Iliad in which we are told that it's the will of God that Aeneas will not be killed at the hands of Achilles but will escape. And he will escape so he can actually, the Trojan line will continue through his sons for onward generations. So Virgil takes this idea and runs with it literally throughout the whole course of the epic when Aeneas leaves Troy and journeys in order to found the city of Rome and Aeneas becomes the founder of Rome. So there are parallels between the Aeneid and the Iliad as we've seen but also between the Aeneid and the Odyssey. So whereas the the Iliad and the Odyssey are 24 books in length, the Aeneid is only 12 books in length and it's really divided into two halves. Books one to six are Aeneid's journey, his own Odyssey, his journey home. And the difference of course between Odysseus's journey home and Aeneas's journey home is that Odysseus is trying to return home to his old home where his wife and son and family and people are. Whereas Aeneas is trying to found a new home to find a new home. He's been made homeless by the destruction of Troy and his destiny is divine destiny to found the city of Rome. So he's looking for the home which is Rome. So books one to six are Aeneas's journey to various places in the known world and he actually he he he overlaps with Odysseus's journey at the same time. There are certain parts of the Aeneid where you know we even meet one of Odysseus men he's been left stranded on the island of the Cyclops. So they're they're they're traveling at the same time in same places and never actually meet. But the second half of the Aeneid books seven to twelve parallels the Iliad. So the first half's a journey like the like the Odyssey. The second half is a a a a war a battle at a siege whereby Aeneas is victorious and succeeds in founding the city of Rome. The theological level as with the Iliad and the Odyssey it's the will of Zeus which is accomplished although he's now called Jupiter, same god, different name. Rome has just Romanized the name but kept the same gods same pantheon and if the other theological thing is a conflict amongst the gods so Juno that's Jupiter's wife not Poseidon is the antagonist. So Poseidon's new name and the Rome was given is Neptune and in and in this whereas whereas Poseidon had been Odysseus's enemy was Odysseus is the enemy of Aeneas. Well Poseidon now known as Neptune is the ally of Aeneas. This is probably getting confused confusing like two sets of names for the gods and the gods basically are now those gods that were hostile to Odysseus are now friends of Aeneas those gods that were friends of Odysseus are hostile to Aeneas. So how does the epic start? The epic starts with the theme being laid out again following the model of Homer. I sing of warfare and a man of war. So this is militaristic right? It's martial. The word martial as in the martial arts comes from the Roman god of war Mars and so this this is basically I sing of warfare and a man of war. So this is going to be about the battle the war to establish Rome as a city. It's going to be built through war and will become a warrior nation and was founded by a man of war a warrior Aeneas. So I say it's a patriotic epic and that's something we have to bear in mind you know for the both what's what's both good and bad about patriotic epic epics right? It's it can be jingoistic. It can be biased proud prejudiced but also it can show a great love of one's own people and culture and country. So in the early part of the Aeneid we are given a retelling of the fall of Troy but of course this is very much from the Trojan perspective and although it's not true or fair to say that Homer is biased towards the Greeks we need to remember that the that the that the villain of the Iliad is Achilles who's a Greek and the real hero is Hector who's a Trojan so he's not biased but but but verge of this propagandistic um you know for him the Greeks who they've just been defeated in war but around was the enemy. So the whole story of Troy is the the Greek the treachery of the Greeks with the Trojan horse. We're told the story of the Trojan horse you know and where we get the line never never trusted a Greek bearing gifts right? Because they're they're all traitors and treacherous and of course by that of course the Greeks did not defeat the mighty Trojans who are the Romans the ancestors of Romans through a fair fight right? Like they weren't strong enough to defeat the Romans or the Trojans uh militarily they had to they had to cheat they had to be deceived for it's only through treachery. Um so Anais is visited by the ghost of Hector following Hector's death and is is basically commanded to to to leave the fighting because his his destiny is to is for Troy to rise from the ashes like a phoenix. Um that's his that's his that's his destiny so he needs to escape. We also are told of Priam's pathetic fate. Um the Greek word pathos I mean means worthy of pity so we're pathetic worthy of pity. So Priam right? He's an accessory to to to Paris's sin in in in refusing to make amends for the elopement uh Paris's elopement with Helen. So he's certainly not a good man but even at the end of the Iliad he has he has eaten humble pie and here we see this old man being basically in his armor which no longer fits him because he's old and withered pathetically standing by the altar trying you know and making one final stand against a young warrior and obviously hopelessly so we we're given these images and we also have one of the most iconic images of the family and and the the classical epics are good at this we mentioned in the Iliad this wonderful scene where Hector and his wife and his son are shown together with the the the the the the the cuteness of the baby and and and the love of the parents for the baby of each other is very powerful one of the most powerful iconic images of the human family anywhere in literature well uh we see the same thing here this is iconic image of the family it's actually been reproduced in several good works of art where Anais carrying his old father and crisis over his shoulder holding his son Ascanius by the hand with his wife following behind this sort of again iconic image of the human family of of of of of of of of that dynamic right the the the young and fit son looking after the elderly father but also looking after his own son and his wife um Criosa's lost his wife's lost and dies and he again Anais gets a vision from from her ghost and a prophecy of his destiny and he will marry again etc etc and then we have one of the great love affairs in the whole of in the whole of um uh literature that between Anais and Dido um you know we talk about you know these these great love affairs in in in literature we think of Antony and Cleopatra and Romeo and Juliet etc but certainly um uh Paolo and Francesca in the divine comedy but certainly um Anais and Dido uh this is another uh one of these iconic love stories but here we have the dark side the dark underbelly of love and we have to understand that throughout history uh there's been two understandings of love uh there's love as um the self-sacrificial giving of ourselves to the other to the beloved even if the other is our enemy so it's not about feelings right it's about a rational choice to freely choose to lay down our lives irrespective of what we feel about the other person so that rational love rooted in in self-sacrifice versus the other type of love which is rooted in feeling uh and is ultimately about the um the gratification of feeling particularly erotic love so Virgil is very good at this because he he shows us the destructive nature of Dido's uh and Anais' love they are called the one of the phrases used by Virgil prisoners of lust in other words they they're so besotted uh so drunk with their love their passion for each other that they completely not need neglect and forget their responsibilities so of course Anais has a divine mission from the gods themselves from from Zeus from Jupiter himself to go and found Rome for the benefit of his son uh and and and and for future generations and for the benefit of the world because of the rise of the Roman Empire he's forsaking and imperiling all of that divinely uh ordained mission because he only has eyes and uh for for Dido uh and their passionate erotic feelings towards each other Dido is the queen of Carthage and he also has been rebuilding it's been building Carthage um and so she has the responsibility as a queen to build her own city for her own people and she's also neglecting that so this is you know love without responsibility uh and that that is not true love because the love we're talking about self-sacrificial love is always responsible for the other for the beloved so um their prisoners of lust they neglect their duties when you know the Naus has to have been given various visitations right from from from his own ghost of his own father but it's not until he gets a message from the gods themselves when Zeus Jupiter himself the father the gods sends the messenger down so an angel right the word angel means messenger sends sends a messenger down to tell uh a Naus you know what are you playing at what are you doing here why are you wasting your time and you know what your your responsibility is and um so then he puts duty before desire he shows the other sort of love um uh sacrificing himself uh for the divine mission for his son for his descendants um for for Rome but of course Daido is also sacrificing Daido because Daido does not um respond in like manner she doesn't say yes well we should be get on with our responsibilities she's so passionate in her feelings in her emotions so it's so irrational in her love that her love i've put love in inverted commas here because if it were true love this couldn't happen her love for a Naus turns to hatred when she realizes there's nothing that she can do to prevent him from leaving so there's this there's this um it's called an unconscionable love what a love without conscience that's a phrase that that Virgil uses and then there's a wonderful metaphor that that's using it when when they're facing each other and Daido is begging him to stay begging him to to keep keep on with the relationship and the metaphor is that there's the wind uh like a gale force wind like a hurricane of passion that's this blowing and it's impacting uh an a is because he still has feelings towards so he's not cold towards her he still has those feelings but he knows he has to uh subjugate those feelings for for a greater cause and a greater good um so we have this wind of passion is being blown but he stands there like an oak tree and so the oak tree if you like you have passion emotion wind uh that blows us hither and thither all over the place and then you have the oak tree rooted the will this is the will the will has to be rooted uh so deeply that it cannot be buffeted and blown around by the winds of passion a great metaphor that we're given uh in the Aeneid and of course Daido's hatred of Aeneas and of the Trojans is a prophecy of the Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage which is happening in the future as regards the story which is obviously happening a thousand years earlier over a thousand years earlier at the fall of Troy twelve hundred years earlier or something uh and and and the Punic Wars happened just a hundred or so years earlier uh from when Virgil was writing so this is a prophecy something's going to happen in the future which is already in the past uh when Virgil was writing we have as with the Odyssey I didn't say much about it when we were discussing the Odyssey um but um uh there's there's a vision of the afterlife in the Odyssey uh where DCS visits the afterlife and visits the dead uh we have uh the same thing you know Virgil's just borrowing all sorts of things from Homer uh and and doing things with them so the same thing as Aeneas goes it has a visit to the underworld and there's what we see is a development in theology uh here because there's no in the in the Odyssey there's no great uh suggestion of the judgment of the dead you know the the dead they're dead become less real they become shadows um uh but there's no suggestion of punishment whereas in uh by the time that uh that Virgil's writing there is this suggestion that there's um uh Tartarus is a place where where sinners are condemned it's just like hell it's a place of eternal punishment and the Elysium is like this sort of uh sort of paradise like a garden of peace and tranquility where they where the just and the virtuous uh spend eternity so this is sense of the judgment of the dead um so this is development of theology and this is still before the time of Christ of course um uh all this will be fulfilled of course in the teaching of Christ and the and the teaching of the church that Christ founds subsequently but certainly it's understanding of the judgment of the dead and whereas we see Virgil adopting and adapting and developing the theology of the afterlife from uh Homer later as we shall see Dante a profoundly catholic poet takes um Virgil's vision of the afterlife and does things with that in his own divine comedy which is of course a journey into the afterlife also uh when Anais meets the the the the ghost the spirit the shade of his own father and Caesis and Caesis gives a platonic discourse so and Caesis and there's his father is a uh a a a philosopher who's a disciple of of the ideas of Plato so we have again this understanding of this deeply philosophical culture and the fact that the Romans had embraced or been conquered by not just uh Greek stories and the Greek gods but also Greek philosophy um and eventually the second part of the book books 7 to 12 they arrive River Tiber at the site which will become Rome uh and what what um Anais says to his son Ascanius when they arrive at the eternal city look my son under Mars illustrious Rome will bound her power with earth her spirit with Olympus okay look my son behold this is yours we're going to found this city and under under which god well not under Jupiter per se the father gods but under the god of war under Mars Rome is going to be a martial city a city of war that will conquer a city of warriors illustrious Rome will bound her power with earth so she will she will she will um exert her political power her military might on earth but her spirit with Olympus the spirit with the gods and notice Olympus is the Greek mountain where the gods reside so they that that will be if you like one nation under god but one nation under the gods i suppose we could say and in the the second half of the book we see as with again similar to the Odyssey where the three main characters in the Odyssey you will remember our Odysseus the father Penelope the wife and Telemachus the son and the the part of the story is the Telemachus is coming of age from being a mere boy which he is at the beginning of the story to being a man who can hold his own in battle well the same thing happens in the Aeneid where the Ascanius at the end with his own rite of passage proves himself as a warrior Aeneas gives us parallel characters Odysseus of course is the villain but we also have a character of Ternus who's like Achilles he's a great warrior he's proud he's thought to be indomitable in battle and of course there is the the role reversal here because here Ternus is defending his city to people this arrogant Achilles type figure whereas Aeneas and the Trojans are the ones doing the besieging laying siege so the roles have been reversed now the Trojans who were the defenders have become those who are on the offensive and then Aeneas fulfilling the role of Hector paralleling Hector in in the Iliad Slays Ternus who parallels the role of Achilles in the Iliad so what what what Virgil does is reverse everything that now the the the the Trojans are going to win Hector's going to slay Achilles Achilles doesn't slay Hector Hector Slays Achilles all is put right all is all is well with the story retold from a Roman perspective so we come to the the last will and testament of Virgil what did Virgil think of this he hadn't quite finished it I think the story's finished but he was going to you know touch it up a bit and change certain things and and you know during his final sickness realized it was going to remain unfinished and his will was that the Aeneid should be destroyed should be burned that's his last will and testament if you like he obviously was not happy with it and we can't really say why it's only not because it's not a great work of literature it's one of the greatest works of literature ever written you know one wonders whether Virgil was perhaps uncomfortable with his reputation being for one of a better word prostituted right sold in a mercenary fashion to the emperor to produce this patriotic epic which is propaganda perhaps he thought that that was not worthy of his muse this of course you know we can't know we can't say but we do know that his will was it should be destroyed and we do know of course because we can read it that his will was not done what do we think about that are we should the should the will of an author with respect to his own work be done well certainly part of us would have to say yes right it's his work and it's his will but how can any of us really wish that this great work of literature had been destroyed and incidentally by the way I mentioned in the previous episodes about history and literature being a jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces you know how many missing pieces are there how many great works of literature have just not survived because they were burned or destroyed by war destroyed by the elements by by just by time so thanks be to god for that remnant that remains right those works that we have that been passed down from generation to generation so irrespective of the will of Virgil the fact is that if there'd been no homa there would have been no Virgil and if there'd been no Virgil there'd be no Dante because as we will see when we get to the divine comedy arguably the greatest work of literature ever written that is inspired very much by the Aeneid by Virgil and without if that had been lost that been burned we would not have the divine comedy this is the glory of tradition this is the glory of civilization that's why Chesterton says that tradition is the proxy of the dead and the enfranchisement of the unborn it's the extension of the franchise it's it hands on to new generations the gifts that have been handed down from the past thanks be to god the Aeneid was not burned thanks be to god we still have it and thanks be to god for Virgil and in Virgil's language they are glad to see us thank you for joining me in this episode of in The Authority join me next time we'll be turning our attention to the authority of the bible this has been an episode of The Authority with Joseph Pierce brought to you by Tan for updates on new episodes and to support The Authority and other great free content visit 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