Post date: Sep 19, 2016 3:33:48 PM
If you have ever read the Aeneid, then you are familiar with the first line of the story “ARMS I SING - AND A MAN” or some variation of that depending on translation (1). If you have never read it before, I think you know what the first line is now. From that line and one’s general knowledge about ancient Rome, everybody pretty much knows Romans loved war (love might be a little strong of a word but they certainly did it enough to argue that point). The first line of the story is ARMS: => WEAPONS => WAR! Then man gets added on like “oh yeah we also need men for war”. I feel like in doing this Virgil is going for the more abstract and almost idealized concept of war than what we necessarily think of today.
Since the first book had already hit hard the concept of war, I was not very surprised that Augustus somehow got worked into the story when Aeneas ventures to the underworld. Under Augustus’ reign there was an unprecedented era of peace while simultaneously wars were being carried out to expand the empire. His tactics remind me of America post WWII, if you drop the atomic bomb then no one is going to mess with you but that does not mean we cannot still mess with others. The organization and training Rome had for constructing their legions is impressive even today.
So of course, this brought up the question for me, of why include Augustus at all? I did some googling and saw that Virgil wrote the Aeneid about 30 BCE which just so happens to coincide with Augustus' rule of about 27 BCE until 14 CE. The Aeneid strings together a mythical story of the founding of Rome so it only makes sense to include the arguably greatest ruler of Rome. Augustus brought stability, peace, and prosperity to the empire after the rocky reign of Caesar. The Aeneid seems to be a celebration of all that makes Rome great and including Augustus would have been an almost pop culture sort of snippet for people and a nod to the reader going "you know how this story ends" which I really enjoyed.