...aaaaand it's done.

Enough said, really. I've just handed up the final copy of my Stage 2 Classical Studies Special Study, rather much earlier than expected. Many thanks to all involved in drafting and editing various bits of it (I'm looking at you, Emily and Mr Stewart)! I'll be off now to bask in my sense of accomplishment.

So I've been away for a while...

I haven't updated this blog in quite a while. Sorry. I'd like to say it's because I've been so busy working on my Special Study, and to some extent that's actually quite true! I've received a draft back from Mr Stewart (I'll try and post a scan of it up sometime soon), and I've since made all the changes he's suggested and managed to cut out an extra 100-ish words in the process. This brings my final word count down to 1987, which is not only a pretty neat number but is below the magic 2000 word limit... which is very exciting news indeed. With that, I think that most of my work is about done, and I've returned all the books I borrowed from the Barr Smith as a gesture symbolic of this. If I'm permitted to, I might post my final copy up here in the near future... :D

I DID A THING!!1!

I cut 350 words from my entire draft!! Just thought you all ought to know.

I'm still 59 words over the limit, and I have no idea where I'm going to cut those words from. I'm pretty happy with what I've done so far though; some bits are better and some (such as my ridiculous first paragraph) are probably a bit worse and less thorough as a result, but something was always going to have to give out if I was ever going to get this thing to an appropriate length.

Also, here's my third paragraph and conclusion as they stand so far:

If historians can agree that the Aeneid was not solely presented to the Roman people as a propaganda text, they are forced to question the way in which it truly was interpreted, and the answer to this question emerges in the text’s discussion of Roman morals, conduct and attitudes to war and battle: it was seen as a sacred text of near biblical merit. It is worthwhile, at this point, to briefly recount the poem’s narrative. Aeneas, a Trojan, is forced to leave his homeland and is sent on a divine mission to found a new Trojan race in Italy. Along the way he meets, falls in love with and later abandons the Carthaginian queen Dido (who commits suicide as a result), sees the future of his city prophesized, and must overcome a rampaging Latin army in order to found his new homeland. Some argue that the figure of Dido is a reference to the Egyptian queen Cleopatra and her seduction of Mark Antony, and that Aeneas’s ability to desert her reflects his commitment to his nation; William Anderson, in his book The Art of the Aeneid, points out that, “on any reasonable moral balance, the choice between his beloved Dido and the destiny of his family and people is obvious”[1]. It is more likely, however, that the intent of this segment of the poem is to portray Aeneas as a mortal character, subject to mortal emotions and mortal conditions. As Dido, “doubles over her sword, the blood foaming over the blade”[2], Virgil, “focuses on the defeated victims of Roman destiny”[3]; he portrays Aeneas him as a figure who feels fear, emotional pain and anger, and thereby as a figure to which Romans can relate. His humanity makes it all the more remarkable that, at the same time, he is presented as the ultimate noble Roman. Aeneas makes all the correct libations to the gods and always maintains correct conduct in battle, and he was often referred to among literary scholars as ‘pietas [4]Aeneas’ as a result of his pious perfection. A conversation Virgil narrates between Juno and Jupiter, where they discuss the future of Aeneas’s people and the Latins’ fate, however, demonstrates that the Aeneid is more than a discussion of its central character; it recounts the foundation of the entire Roman race. Juno pleads with Jupiter, “illud te... cum iam conubiis pacem felicibus (esto)
component, cum iam leges et foedera iungent,
ne vetus indigenas nomen mutare Latinos
neu Troas fieri iubeas Teucrosque vocari
aut vocem mutare viros aut vertere vestem”[5]. Virgil recounts the creation of the Roman race as being a blend of pious Trojans and more pagan Latins, two nations that unite to form a godly, strong and patriotic people. His work gives Romans true heritage, linking them to two powerful races of people and one morally perfect, yet still distinctly mortal, individual. Syed reflects on all this in writing, “at an early age, [Roman] students committed [the Aeneid] to memory... the heroic stories they contained were seen as planting the seeds of morality in people’s minds at an early impressionable age, [and] this moral foundation was laid not by philosophical reasoning, but by the force of emotion”[6]. She continues, “the classic... [has the capacity to] serve as a unifying cultural icon for culturally diverse audiences”[7]; at the time the Aeneid was written, Rome was the largest empire in the ancient world, encompassing an unprecedentedly large number of diverse cultures. The teaching and widespread reading of the Aeneid taught all of these people Roman values and morality, and gave them a collective, unifying Roman identity, something that was never present in, for example, Ancient Greek culture. Augustus’s commission of the Aeneid may have merely created a propaganda document in the short term, but one that evolved in the long term into an iconic, sacred document that defined the Roman self, Rome’s identity and its heritage.

There is little doubt that the Aeneid was commissioned and written with the intention of it being a propaganda document for Caesar Augustus. Its text is littered with elements of propaganda, and the way the entire poem extolls the virtues of the Roman Empire demonstrates its status as a piece of writing with an underhand purpose. Propaganda, however, is always written for the short term. The Aeneid may well have been effective propaganda for Caesar Augustus, but its long-term use as an educational text, a piece of literary art and a document which defined the identity of the Roman people transcended its initial purpose. It is fair to say, then, that the Aeneid acted as propaganda for Caesar Augustus to some extent. It transcended this purpose, however, to become part of the fabric of Roman culture, and its status as a document that defines the identity of the Roman people is still enduring today.

The best thing about these is that they're probably the two shortest bits. Mr Stewart, please note footnote no. 4...

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[1] W. S. Anderson, The Art of The Aeneid, Prentice-Hall, New Jersey, 1969, P. 47.

[2] Virgil, (translated by R. Fagles), op. cit., P. 150.

[3] Anderson, op. cit., P. 49.

[4] NOT A FOOTNOTE but something I need to ask about. I want to insert an appendix explaining the concept of pietas. Is this possible?

[5] Virgil, op. cit. English translation: “I beg of you... when now they join in peace with the Trojans, when they join in laws and in marriage, do not make the Latins change their names nor take up Trojan customs nor change their clothes.”

[6] Y. Syed, op. cit., P. 19.

[7] ibid. P. 24.

Yet another paragraph...

I've only made detail changes to my first body paragraph, and, in doing so, have failed to cut any words from it. This is a bit irritating given that I'm already 400 words over the maximum count. However, moving right along, this is my second body paragraph. It presents a more subjective point of view, and is written a bit differently to the first one, so any feedback would be much appreciated!!

To claim that the Aeneid therefore acted as propaganda above all else, however, is a deeply flawed allegation. To start with the most obvious issue with this suggestion, the number of verses Virgil devotes to his propaganda material makes up a tiny percentage of the entire text. Augustus may have, “wanted an epic poem with himself as the hero”[1], but the Aeneid is much more like an epic poem with Augustus as a prominent footnote. More importantly, the poem’s use was hardly restricted to propaganda at the time it was written; indeed, it was a vital asset for Roman teachers and schools. In her book Vergil’s Aeneid and the Roman Self, Yasmin Syed, professor of classics at the University of Berkley, writes, “reciting the Aeneid was a central... experience in a Roman boy’s education... [and] the existence of commentaries on Vergil’s (sic.) poetry illustrate how important his works were at this stage of Roman education”[2]; she goes on to point out that, “[these commentaries] discuss issues of correct language usage, which was among the most important goals of the grammarian’s instruction”[3]. Virgil’s Aeneid was clearly a vital part of Roman rhetorical education, and while this might not preclude it from being a piece of propaganda material, it certainly indicates that it acted as something much more important in Roman culture. Interestingly, Quinn goes as far as to suggest that the text’s literary merit actually does preclude it from being a piece of propaganda material, highlighting that while, “the occasional status of the Aeneid [as a poem written to celebrate Augustus’s triumph in the Battle of Actium] is an essential, fundamental aspect of the poem”[4], it is, “fundamentally dishonest... to misunderstand the basis of the poem’s artistic integrity. If we call the poem a propaganda poem, we must add that the overtones of covert, surreptitious action which the word ‘propaganda’ invokes are inappropriate”[5]. The book’s importance as an educational tool, he suggests, is in the beauty of its language, “its imagery, its sensitive, telling pathos... its magnificence as verbal poetry”[6], not in its content at all. This very style of language would have made the text important as something else to the Roman people: a piece of literary art. This was a text that represented the ultimate in Roman linguistic talent and the beauty of the Roman language, and told a fundamentally Roman story in a beautiful and complex way. Its appreciation and widespread use as an educational tool suggests that the Romans were a well-adjusted and discriminating audience, and reflects their penchant for work with literary merit. There were many poets, such as Varius Rufus, or other authors, such as Julius Caesar himself, who provided the Roman education system with perfectly acceptable pieces of propaganda material which educators could use to teach their children about Rome’s fame and glory, but the Aeneid stood above these as being a far more sophisticated and complex work. Clearly, the Aeneid’s use extended far beyond the reach of simple propaganda.

---

[1] ibid. P. 26.

[2] Y. Syed, Vergil's Aeneid and the Roman Self: Subject and Nation in Literary Discourse, Univesity of Michigan Press, Michigan, 2005, P. 14-15.

[3] ibid. P. 15.

[4] K. Quinn, op. cit., P. 294.

[5] ibid.

[6] ibid. 

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