Read The Aeneid for Free Online Page A

already had sightings of this Julian Star at critical moments in Julian history, at 2.694 when Anchises consents to leave Troy and at 8.681 on Octavian’s helmet at Actium. It was also generally understood in the twenties BC thatAugustus, his adoptive son, would be deified. Finally, the peace which Apollo proceeds to prophesy is the
Pax Augusta
, the peace which Augustus was promising to bring to the whole Roman world, coming not from Troy, but from a much greater city. As Apollo says, ‘Troy is not large enough for you’ (644). The honour of the Julians is thus vindicated by Ascanius Iulus, and his descendants are cleared of the imputations levelled by Numanus.
BOOK 10
PALLAS AND MEZENTIUS
    Aeneas returns at the head of the Etruscan armies. Turnus kills Pallas and tears the belt off his dead body. As Aeneas slaughters the Latins in an orgy of revenge, Juno saves Turnus from his fury by spiriting him from the battlefield. Mezentius takes his place, and in battle with Aeneas his life is saved by the intervention of his young son Lausus. Aeneas kills Lausus, and the wounded Mezentius challenges him and dies in single combat.
The Council of the Gods
    Jupiter opens the debate of the council of the gods by asking why Italians are at war with Trojans against his express will. Strange. After all he is omniscient – he knows the answer to all questions, and he is omnipotent – his will is the unalterable decree of fate. That is the theology, but in epic theology does not always apply. Sometimes Jupiter is not the all-powerful lord of the universe, but the father of a rowdy family where there is constant trouble between jealous wife and unruly daughter. The gods in epic sweep the action to the heights, as at the beginning and end of his episode. They also pull it down to the level of domestic comedy, as when Venus and Juno wrangle in council like a pair of rhetorically trained fishwives.
    Venus complains that after all these years her son is still homeless and his people are under siege again, this time on Italian soil; Juno says that if they are suffering, it is by their own choice. Venus pretends to believe that the destiny of empire pronounced by Jupiter at the beginning of the epic is beingaltered; Juno’s reply is that the Trojans are not fulfilling their destiny, but obeying the prophecies of a madwoman, Priam’s daughter Cassandra. Venus objects to the storm Juno raised against Aeneas in Book 1 ; Juno wilfully misunderstands and says that Aeneas’ voyage back from Etruria is none of her doing. In Venus’ view Turnus is swollen with his success in war; for Juno he is taking his stand in defence of his native land. Venus grumbles because she is at risk from the violence of mere mortals; Juno’s reply sketches Turnus’ descent from the gods of Italy. Venus tries to rouse pity for the Trojans because of the absence of Aeneas; Juno advises him to stay away. It is an established device of ancient oratory to appeal for clemency by bringing in the children of the defendant at the end of a speech. Venus brings in Ascanius, and begs to be allowed, if all else is lost, to take him to safety in one of her beautiful sanctuaries in Amathus, Paphos, Cythera or Idalium; Juno taunts her by telling her to be content with Paphos, Idalium and Cythera and to keep away from these rough Italians. Point by point Juno has stripped down Venus’ arguments, offering two lies for every one by Venus and adding half-a-dozen new ones of her own.
    The speeches of Sinon in Book 2 were a satirical attack upon Roman rhetoric, the technical study of the arts of persuasion on which Roman education was based. This clash between Venus and Juno is the
coup de grâce
. Why should Virgil launch these attacks upon the false values of Roman rhetoric? An obvious approach to this question would be to connect it with the political conditions of the day. In the first century BC the Roman republic was torn apart by the rivalries of ambitious men, fought out not only