the more I think about the Aeneid, the more I realise that when we look at it through modern eyes, it becomes a novel about so much more than the founding of a city. We follow characters who are truly traumatised by all that they have suffered, and a reluctant hero who craves his mother’s comfort - with the weight of his ancestors and his descendants on his shoulders. Despite his own personal trauma, Aeneas must carry on through all the suffering and loss, in order to fulfill his purpose. Despite loosing the most important person in her life, Dido must flee her own country and start up a new kingdom entirely alone, and of course be doomed to meet a tragic end, as all she has worked for falls apart. Despite having his future set out before him, Turnus must fight for all that he had previously deemed so certain, and eventually have it all taken from him, including his life. Surely as modern readers, these tales resonate with us in an entirely new and powerful manner - we can all relate to having to plough through trauma and tragedy despite our own emotions, to feeling alone, craving comfort, being thrown into uncertainty, loosing battles we thought we would win. And the beauty of the Aeneid is the sheer complexity of each one of the characters: hero through one eye, villain through another. It is more than a study of what it means to be roman, it is a study of what it means to be human.
Eastern luxury as a corrupting influence is everywhere in Roman moralizing literature. Livy claims that the moral decline of Rome began in 187 BCE caused by the return of the Roman army from what would become the Roman province of Asia (Western Turkey). Sallust says that Sulla’s return from Asia in 83 BCE had a similar effect.
But I am very keen on amplifying the idea that by locating the foundation story of the Romans in a figure that descends from the east, the seeds of destruction are already sown within the Romans themselves. Thus, at some level, the Augustan cultural project (i.e. Vergil’s Aenied) focuses on returning to the morals of the past while simultaneously creating a narrative that undermines those exact morals.
Or maybe it is not that simple. Maybe it is an attempt to integrate eastern influence as a foundational aspect of what it means to be Roman (how would that sit for a traditionalist?!). Vergil doesn’t shy away from Aeneas’ effeminacy when he makes note of how Aeneas and the Trojans in general are dressed and styled. The offspring of Aeneas and his son Ascanius cannot escape that eastern element when they mix with the native Latins (even though Juno makes it explicit that she wants it eradicated so that none of what is Trojan infects the new mixed race, Aen. 12.820-830). Jupiter responds with commixti corpore tantum subsident Teucri, “The Trojans having been mixed only in body will remain”; a weird way of saying that the only thing Trojan about the resulting mixture will be physical. Thus Romans, according to this narrative, are at some level physically eastern.
The first words spoken by a woman in the cena Trimalchionis (Trimalchio’s dinner) are to another woman.
Gareth Schmeling notes that this is possibly a colloquial version of what Anchises says to Aeneas when seeing him in the underworld: datur ora tueri nate - “Is it permitted to see your face, child” (“est te…videre” literally translates as “Is it permitted to see you?”)
latin fact #1: the letter v in latin is pronounced like the letter w in english. as such, the latin word for hello, salve, would be pronounced sal-weh
latin fact #2: there’s a quote from vergil’s aeneid, one of the most famous works of latin literature, that includes the phrase nunc morere, which is basically the latin way of saying “then perish”
latin fact #3: thanks to latin pronunciation rules, you could totally make a hewwo mr obama meme in latin using a quote from one of the most influential poems of the ancient world
look if i’m gonna be cursed with this knowledge i’m gonna curse y’all with it too
1: S-salve ecquis ibi estne?
*spelunca aquae lente incohat inplere*
1:S-salve aliquis serva me pwecow Salve?
*summa aquae vix adluere potes sentire*
1: Nonnonnonnon salve!! Salve serva me
2: Deus wequietem da spiritui tui
1. Salve! Domine, cur hoc mihi facias Salve!! Serva me pwecow
1: M-magistre obame iste tu estne salve! Serva me pwecow video esse in pavlo twibulatione magistre obame salve S-salve
1: @( ◕ x ◕ )@
1: Pwecow te Magistre Obame serva me nolo mowiwe
1: S-salve Magistre Obame hoc tamen esne
1: Magistre obame pwecow mersus sum S-salve timefactus sum
1: Quidquam faciam tibi magistre obame pwecow serva
2: Quidquam?
1: Quidquam tibi magistre obame :3
2: Nunc morere
1: D:
One of my Latin students drew a cartoon of Obama saying “NUNC MORERE” on the back of her latest quiz and I blame all of you the internet is canceled
Venus the golden sammy sled dog. Her position is long-distance lead and she’s owned by the musher Anya [whose Iliad counterpart is Aeneas]. Anya and her team are rivals of the Ilion sled dog sanctuary. While the Ilion sanctuary is a collaborative project I’ve made between me and my friends– I’ve made rivals that are all based on Iliad characters to keep up the theme (and my love for it!!). I hope to show them all soon ^_^b
as much as it pains me to say this… the Aeneid did father-son relationships soooo much better than the Odyssey or Iliad. like. Aeneas and Ascanius had no right to be making me cry like that.
“Dido”, a commissioned illustration of the legendary founder and queen of Carthage.
It was a joy to research artifacts and styles from Phoenician culture - lots of Greek, Syrian, Egyptian and other influences. Also note the reference to the Trojan war in the wall paintings!
