"Ben's Behemoth" mk2...

This is my first body paragraph, which I've ground to a bit of a creative halt on - mostly because it's way too long, and I'm struggling to cut it down more than I have done. Readers should, however, note all the times I've included both Latin and English text from the Aeneid, which I've really only done to show off; the translations are my own, because I feel it gives the essay a bit more integrity if I've supplied my own interpretation of Virgil's text. I don't know whether this is allowed, so I can cut these bits out and replace them with Fagles's translation if it proves necessary (which I am afraid it probably will). Anyway, please have a look at what I've done. Assuming you're interested. :D

For an historian today, establishing the Aeneid as a propaganda text is not a particularly difficult task; its text is littered with indications that Virgil was writing less about his own mythological subject and more about the near-mythological achievements of Caesar Augustus and his father. Indeed, as early as line 286 in the epic, Virgil writes, “nascetur pulchra Troianus origine Caesar,
imperium oceano, famam qui terminet astris”[1] (From that noble blood will rise a Trojan Caesar, with his empire bound by the ocean, and his glory held by the stars). Virgil is narrating a discussion between Jupiter and his wife, Juno, and in any other text it would seem remarkable that Jupiter, king of the immortals, might give such great praise to an individual Roman emperor. Later in the text, the poet continues, “hic Caesar et omnis Iuli
progenies... hic est, tibi quem promitti saepius audis,
Augustus Caesar, diui genus, aurea condet
saecula qui rursus Latio regnata per arua
Saturno quondam”[2] (Here is Caesar and Iulius’s whole line... here he is, you have heard his coming promised, Caesar Augustus, son of a god, he will bring back the golden age through the Latin fields where Saturn once ruled), this coming during a dialogue between Aeneas and his dead father, Anchises. Robert Fagles’s translation has Virgil going on with, “[he will] expand his empire... to a land beyond the stars... not even Hercules himself could cross such a vast expanse of earth”[3]. Probably Virgil’s longest account of the Caesars’ heroism, however, comes during the epic’s eighth book, where he explains the mysterious depictions on Aeneas’s shield. These are, in fact, drawings of Caesar’s triumph over Mark Antony and Cleopatra during Rome’s civil war; Fagles has Virgil writing, “on one flank, Caesar Augustus leading Italy into battle, the Senate and People too... and the great gods themselves... and opposing them comes Antony leading on... that outrage, that Egyptian wife!”[4]. Caesar’s return is marked with “roads [resounding] with joy, revelry, clapping hands”[5], and “the vanquished people move in a long slow file... their arms as motley as their tongues”[6] . This passage is both a glorification of Augustus’s final battle, and an attempt to mock his enemies. It is, in fact, the very definition of propaganda. Of course, the appearance of this kind of passage is unsurprising when one considers the type of man Augustus was; he is said to have said to said to a political advisor, “non ego Titanas canerem... bellaque resque tui memorarem Caesaris”[7] ([if I was to write an epic poem] I would not talk of mythology... I would recall the wars and matters of Caesar to you”), and it is alleged that, when attempting to commission a poet to write his work, he would, “give a list of battles... above all Actium... this would have been the subject, one to be treated as a series of glorious feats of arms, with the why’s and wherefore’s pushed into the background”[8]. On this basis, many poets, including Propertius, Horace, and initially Virgil himself, rejected Augustus’s task. Quinn writes that “a true poet is reluctant to accept a task unless he can see in it the accomplishment of some creative act”[9], and it is a reflection of this attitude that Virgil’s propaganda, although particularly blatant when it does appear, is sparse and well-spaced throughout the poem. This does nothing to negate the deeper undertones of the poem; its central theme of the conflict between Aeneas and the epic’s various antagonists do possess a Homeric quality, but it is fair to argue that it, too, was produced for the purposes of propaganda. In his descriptions of the conflict between the Trojans and the Latins, Virgil does not present a fight with good opposing evil, but rather presents a conflict simply between Rome and something else. Whereas in an Homeric epic the audience finds themselves supporting an individual character, Virgil persuades the Aeneid’s readers to support the Trojans, the men who will come to found Rome, against all else. His approach to evading Augustus’s direct wish that he discuss little more than the Caesars’ triumphs is a creative one, and one that invites comparisons between Augustus’s battles and Aeneas’s throughout the course of the text. All of this is powerful evidence, then, that the Aeneid was not just written as a propaganda text but was most likely interpreted as one by the Roman people.

---

[1] Vergil, http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/verg.html, (Accessed 13 July 2013).

[2] ibid.

[3] Virgil, (translated by R. Fagles), The Aeneid Penguin, Camberwell, 2010, P. 208-209.

[4] ibid. P. 264.

[5] ibid. P. 265.

[6] ibid.

[7] K. Quinn, Virgil's Aeneid: A Critical Description, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1968, P. 27.

[8] ibid.

[9] ibid. P. 29