The Aeneid, a 2,000-year-old poem that reads like a playbook for U.S. politics today | At a time when empires are making a comeback, Virgil’s Aeneid is more relevant than ever
The Aeneid, a 2,000-year-old poem that reads like a playbook for U.S. politics today | At a time when empires are making a comeback, Virgil’s Aeneid is more relevant than ever
Some of the more interesting points of this argument:
>In many ways, The Aeneid is a story of conquest meant to please his patron, Emperor Augustus, who was busy transforming Rome from a republic to an empire, and needed the good-news propaganda. Aeneas was the son of Venus, a goddess: therefore Rome, and her empire, are sanctioned by the heavens.
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>That divine sanctioning of empire is what many leaders in the decades and centuries that followed took from the poem, too.
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>”This text by Virgil — elite men were reading,” Susanna Braund, a retired professor of classics at the University of British Columbia, told IDEAS.
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>”This formed their worldview. And when you look at the imperial projects of the British, and the Spanish and the Portuguese, these were guys who were totally raised on the idea that you go west and you bring your ‘culture,’ in scare quotes, to the ‘uncultured natives’ in scare quotes.”
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>…
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>So was Virgil secretly building a critique of the Roman Empire into The Aeneid, right under Augustus’ nose? It remains an open question.
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>”When you read between the lines there are at the very least ambivalent attitudes present in the poem about empire,” said classics professor Paul Hay.
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>But Sarah Ruden, who has translated The Aeneid into English, adds the epic poem shows another side that focuses on humanity.
>
>”Virgil appears to be the first author who gives a sympathetic depiction of cannon fodder, of nobodies, of unheroic characters who don’t want to be in war.
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>”But they are humanized — they are real people to him. They have a past. They have a tragedy.”
Given the world we live in today, it would be interesting if not instructive to (re)read this epic, and to consider some of the issues raised here. The surface reading is certainly one of sycophancy to the emperor and empire, but the idea of focusing on the secondary characters is an interesting one.
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Some of the more interesting points of this argument:
>In many ways, The Aeneid is a story of conquest meant to please his patron, Emperor Augustus, who was busy transforming Rome from a republic to an empire, and needed the good-news propaganda. Aeneas was the son of Venus, a goddess: therefore Rome, and her empire, are sanctioned by the heavens.
>
>That divine sanctioning of empire is what many leaders in the decades and centuries that followed took from the poem, too.
>
>”This text by Virgil — elite men were reading,” Susanna Braund, a retired professor of classics at the University of British Columbia, told IDEAS.
>
>”This formed their worldview. And when you look at the imperial projects of the British, and the Spanish and the Portuguese, these were guys who were totally raised on the idea that you go west and you bring your ‘culture,’ in scare quotes, to the ‘uncultured natives’ in scare quotes.”
>
>…
>
>So was Virgil secretly building a critique of the Roman Empire into The Aeneid, right under Augustus’ nose? It remains an open question.
>
>”When you read between the lines there are at the very least ambivalent attitudes present in the poem about empire,” said classics professor Paul Hay.
>
>But Sarah Ruden, who has translated The Aeneid into English, adds the epic poem shows another side that focuses on humanity.
>
>”Virgil appears to be the first author who gives a sympathetic depiction of cannon fodder, of nobodies, of unheroic characters who don’t want to be in war.
>
>”But they are humanized — they are real people to him. They have a past. They have a tragedy.”
Given the world we live in today, it would be interesting if not instructive to (re)read this epic, and to consider some of the issues raised here. The surface reading is certainly one of sycophancy to the emperor and empire, but the idea of focusing on the secondary characters is an interesting one.
Yup, authoritarianism vs civil democratic forms.