The Journey of Aeneas by Virgil

1. THE JOURNEY OF
AENEAS
“Find your place under the sun…”

2. Intended Learning Outcomes
 Explain the context of Aeneas’s journey from Troy to Rome.
 Point out the parallel elements between the Greek Iliad and Odyssey
and the Roman Aeneid.
 Appreciate the influence of Roman epic to the present body of
literature.
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3. The Journey of Aeneas
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4. The Journey of Aeneas – 1. Troy
 Aeneas flees the burning city with
the household gods called
the Penates, his son Ascanius, his
father Anchises.
 His wife Creusa follows behind but
gets lost in the mayhem.
 Aeneas and other Trojans meet
up and build ships.
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5. The Journey of Aeneas – 2. Thrace
 Aeneas originally intended to
build a city there but blood oozed
out of the ground.
 This was the burial ground
of Polydorus, who was the son
of King Priam.
 They kept going due to a bad
omen of treachery.
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6. The Journey of Aeneas – 3. Island of Delos
 Delos was an island in
the Aegean Sea.
 The god Apollo via the oracle
tells Aeneas to find the place of
his ancestors.
 Aeneas mistakenly understood it
as the island of Crete and set sail
towards it.
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7. The Journey of Aeneas – 4. Island of Crete
 Crete was an larger island in
the Mediterranean Sea,
 While visiting Knossos, but while
sleeping, Aeneas had a vision that
the Penates were telling him to
travel to Italy.
 Italy’s former name was Hesperia,
the western country.
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8. The Journey of Aeneas – 5. Island of Strophades
 They traveled west, skirting the
coast of Greece,
 Stopping at the Strophades
Islands in the Ionian Sea, which
was west of the Peloponnese or
Sparta.
 The Harpies attacked them, were
beaten off, but one of them
confirmed that Italy was indeed
their final destination.
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9. The Journey of Aeneas – 6. Actium
 They stopped at Actium in
western Greece.
 They held the Trojan Games in
memory of those slain in the war
and during the voyage.
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10. The Journey of Aeneas – 6. Buthrotum
 They landed on Buthrotum on
the mainland of Greece on the western
side.
 Aeneas meets Andromache, wife
of Hector who is now married to a son
of King Priam named Helenus.
 Helenus prophesied that Aeneas would
know that he was at his final and proper
destination when a white sow had thirty
young.
 Andromache gave mantles to Aeneas'
son Ascanius because the little boy
reminded her of her dead son Astyanax.
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11. The Journey of Aeneas – 7. Ceraunia
 Ceraunia off of the coast of Albania was
the closest point to Italy, on the eastern
side of the Adriatic Sea.
 However, they were warned to avoid
that route for the dangers that await.
 Hence, they sailed westward to Italy and
took the longer route.
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12. The Journey of Aeneas – 8. Italy
 They landed on Italy on the
southeastern most point was where they
saw the temple of the
goddess Minerva.
 They saw a sign of four white horses,
suggesting that there would have to
be war in Italy.
 They made a sacrifice to Juno, trying to
appease the goddess and continued
their voyage southward and westward
to Tarentum.
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13. The Journey of Aeneas – 9. Sicily
 They proceeded to Sicily on the eastern
coast, they stayed at the harbor of
the Cyclops.
 They met Achaemenides who was
a Greek abandoned by Ulysses
 The short route at this point would have
taken them by Scylla and Charybdis
 Aeneas' father Anchises died and was
buried in Sicily.
 Juno asked Aeolus, the God of Winds,
to start a storm. Aeneas and his men
were caught out at sea in the storm.
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14. The Journey of Aeneas – 10. Carthage
 Aeneas meets the beautiful
and intelligent Queen Dido from Tyre,
whose husband Sychaeus was murdered
by Dido's brother.
 Dido is building a city and planning
its laws, but Aeneas and Dido, by the
will of Juno and Venus, fall in love.
 Jupiter directs Mercury to remind
Aeneas of his duty to found the city
of Rome.
 Aeneas makes preparations to leave,
without first informing Dido who
commits suicide on a funeral pyre.
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15. The Journey of Aeneas – 11. Sicily
 Sicily is revisited.
 Aeneas decides to hold the Lusus
Troiae or Trojan Games in honor of
his dead father Anchises.
 Juno and Alecto caused the Trojan
women to set fire to the ships in an
attempt to prevent further sea
voyages.
 Aeneas is discouraged, but the
prophet Nautes tells him to keep
going while some women stayed in
Sicily.
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16. The Journey of Aeneas – 12. Cumae
 Cumae on the west coast of Italy is
where they landed.
 Aeneas met the Cumaean Sibyl,
a goddess who acted as his guide
and brought him to the Underworld.
 Using the golden bough, he was
granted access to the underworld
despite being still alive.
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17. The Journey of Aeneas – 13. Underworld
 In the Underworld, Aeneas enters by
means of the Golden Bough, and
crosses the River Styx on the boat
of Charon.
 Aeneas sees Dido who refuses to
speak to him or even look at him;
 He sees fallen heroes from
the Trojan War;
 He meets the spirits of future leaders
of Rome; and others
including Silvius, Romulus, Numa,
Augustus Caesar.
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18. The Journey of Aeneas – 14. Latium (Rome)
 Aeneas finally reaches Latium, which
is the old name of Rome.
 Aeneas travels up the river Tiber and
becomes engaged in a war with his
rival Turnus.
 Turnus hoped to marry
princess Lavinia, the daughter
of King Latinus and Queen Amata,
but the king thought that his
daughter should marry a stranger,
as foretold in a prophecy.
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