http://www.hessian.org/heavy_metal/2009/07/28/book-review-the-aeneid/ Heavy metal awareness Sun, 18 Jul 2010 03:20:25 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 http://www.hessian.org/heavy_metal/2009/07/28/book-review-the-aeneid/comment-page-1/#comment-435 P. Camacho Sun, 18 Jul 2010 03:20:25 +0000 http://www.hessian.org/heavy_metal/?p=611#comment-435 I understand the message you feel you've received from the Aeneid. Self sacrifice in order to achieve something great is an underlying theme in the book. Aeneas is even tempted by Dido, a Carthaginian Queen, but does not let the easy life she's provided get in the way of his goal. The story is just a story, though. It's most likely more a story than anything Homer ever wrote. To truly appreciate the Aeneid it's necessary to know why the book was written and who the book was written for. Although Virgil was a talented writer, he wrote with a very specific goal. That goal wasn't to tell a story merely to inspire people to live virtuously and with purpose. It was to lend legitimacy to the current Emperor, Julius Caesar, and to give the Roman people a sense of unity and pride in their (very much fictional) history. I understand the message you feel you’ve received from the Aeneid. Self sacrifice in order to achieve something great is an underlying theme in the book. Aeneas is even tempted by Dido, a Carthaginian Queen, but does not let the easy life she’s provided get in the way of his goal. The story is just a story, though. It’s most likely more a story than anything Homer ever wrote. To truly appreciate the Aeneid it’s necessary to know why the book was written and who the book was written for. Although Virgil was a talented writer, he wrote with a very specific goal. That goal wasn’t to tell a story merely to inspire people to live virtuously and with purpose. It was to lend legitimacy to the current Emperor, Julius Caesar, and to give the Roman people a sense of unity and pride in their (very much fictional) history.

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