This fall, read

Virgil’s Aeneid

and discuss his classical account of the founding of Rome from the remnants of Troy

Sponsored by the Lewis Tolkien Society (suggested donation $60)

Six sessions October 5 through November 9

Mondays 1:30 – 3:00pm, In-person – Dallas

The Aeneid is a Latin epic written by Virgil in the 1st century BC that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who traveled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. The first six of the poem’s twelve books tell the story of Aeneas’ wanderings from Troy to Italy, and the poem’s second half treats the Trojans’ ultimately victorious war upon the Latins, under whose name Aeneas and his Trojan followers are destined to be subsumed.

The poem was commissioned by the Emperor Augustus to glorify Rome. Several critics think that the hero Aeneas’ abandonment of the Carthaginian Queen Dido is meant as a statement of how Augustus’ enemy, Mark Anthony, should have behaved with the Egyptian Queen Cleopatra. (Summary by Wikipedia and Karen Merline)

The hero Aeneas was already known to Graeco-Roman legend and myth, having been a character in the Iliad. Virgil took the disconnected tales of Aeneas’ wanderings, his vague association with the foundation of Rome, and his description as a personage of no fixed characteristics other than a scrupulous pietas, and fashioned the Aeneid into a compelling founding myth or national epic that tied Rome to the legends of Troy, explained the Punic Wars, glorified traditional Roman virtues, and legitimised the Julio-Claudian dynasty as descendants of the founders, heroes, and gods of Rome and Troy.

For more information, contact Dr. Muller (at abb303@gmail.com or 248 410 3575)