Civilization #17: Homer, Vergil, and the War for the Soul of Rome

Aeneas, his divine mother Venus, his father Anchises, his son Iulus, and the queen Dido shape the moral arc of the Aeneid.

Aeneas and Turnus meet in a decisive duel that settles the fate of the Latins and the Trojan newcomers.

Julius Caesar and Augustus Caesar craft a dynastic narrative that connects the Julii family to Aeneas, the Trojan survivor who precedes Rome’s traditional founders.

Virgil writes under Augustus Caesar’s supervision, with the emperor shaping the political goals the poem must achieve.

Trojans, Greek emissaries, and Aeneas confront a persuasive Greek soldier whose story opens the Aeneid.

Augustus Caesar consolidates command over Roman soldiers, administrators, and security forces after the civil wars.

Dido, queen of Carthage, and Aeneas become the central figures in the Aeneid’s warning about love.

Augustus and Roman elites judge Greek poets, philosophers, and artistic traditions while Romans continue to admire and absorb them.

Greek city-states and Roman communities form contrasting civic characters, with merchants, sailors, and colonists shaping Greece while farmers, soldiers, and inland elites shape Rome.

Homer speaks to early Greek communities forming civic character, while Virgil writes for Romans already living inside a vast empire.

Achilles, the greatest Greek warrior, and Priam, the Trojan king and father of Hector, face each other after a cycle of rage and loss.

Odysseus, the suitors, and Penelope participate in a final contest that reveals the true king of Ithaca.

Odysseus returns to Ithaca disguised as a beggar, and Penelope tests the truth of his identity through intimate knowledge.

Odysseus, a reluctant Greek hero and strategist, confronts the moral cost of victory at Troy.

Penelope and Telemachus endure Odysseus’s absence while suitors and a goddess shape their choices.

Augustus and the Roman Empire become the culmination of Aeneas’ destiny in the lecture’s reading of the Aeneid.

Augustus, Roman elites, and the wider citizenry confront a political identity that once celebrated liberty and now must accept imperial rule.

Greek Homeric ideals and Roman Augustan ideology compete for authority over how citizens should feel, imagine, and obey.

Roman citizens and nobles uphold a civic code that prioritizes obedience to gods, rejection of kings, and sacrifice for the public good.