Title The Aeneid Series --- Author Virgil Cover Art --- Publisher Collectors Library - 2004 First Printing --- Category Classics Warnings None Main Characters Aeneas, Dido, Venus, Juno Main Elements Gods

Virgil's epic tale tells the story of Aeneas, a Trojan hero, who abandons his city after its fall with his father Anchises and his little son Ascanius, for Aeneas is destined to found Rome and father the Roman race. As Aeneas journeys closer to his goal, he must first prove his worth and attain the moral and emotional maturity necessary for such an illustrious task. He battles terrifying storms in the Mediterranean, encounters the fearsome Cyclopes, falls in love with the beautiful and charismatic Dido, Queen of Carthage, travels into the Underworld and engages in war in Italy. Virgil's Aeneid - poignant, thrilling, terrifying and moving in equal measures - has inspired generations of artists, writers and musicians, including Dante, Milton, Purcell and Turner.

I will admit I was surprised to discover this book. See, I had read Homer's The Iliad and The Odyssey, the latter of which is clearly what we would call a sequel, or at least a spin-off. And now here, we have another author dabbling in the same "series", only doing a different kind of spin-off, where you take the "villain" of the original books and tell his story instead. Of course Homer may not have actually existed, or perhaps he was several people, and the tale that Virgil added to was well known in many form. But it just seemed so...modern? Kind of like how Baum invented Oz, but then many other others jumped in to tell their own tale, only this was happening over a thousand years ago.

Now the problem with the Iliad is that you neither get to hear how the story began since the audience would already know (the war was already 10 years in progress), and you don't get to find out how it ends (Troy still stands and the war continues when the Iliad is over). The Odyssey does take place after, but it's more about Odysseus's adventures getting home, and you only get a brief recap of what happened to Troy, I think the Trojan Horse might have been mentioned in one sentence?

Virgil fills in the latter gap, describing the death of Achilles, and the fall of Troy. Only he flips sides and tells it from the point of view of a Trojan named Aeneas, son of Venus. After the fall he flees with what is left of the Trojan people, and pursued by Juno (who sided with the Greeks) and aided by his mother, he sort of bounces around the Mediteranean looking for a place to start over. Apollo gives a prophecy, so while several potential places are found along the way, they are forced to keep moving. After all, he is destined to found the Roman people (somehow I doubt the historical accuracy of this, but I can see the Romans wanting to claim an honorable heritage so wove that in...somewhere else I read that the Norse also claimed that Troy was the location of Asgard, apparently though the ultimate losers of the war everyone wanted to be associated with them).

This part of the tale is a kind of mix between The Iliad and The Odyssey, being both a tale of battles but also a tale of adventures and vast travels. The gods (with their Roman names of course) are just as involved in this one.

It starts with a recap of the fall of Troy, and at least we get to hear the tale of the Trojan Horse. We also witness the brutality of Pyrrhus...the irony is I kind of forgot about him until a month later I read The Song of Achilles, where there was actually a comment about how Achilles would be remembered and his son forgotten...cause yeah, I had to wrack my brain a bit and then remembered that guy that went about grabbing children and smashing their skulls against walls.

Aeneas and his people eventually arrived in Carthage, where he marries Dido, and then abandons her when he's reminded this is not his final destination. Heart broken she kills herself. I guess no surprise that Carthage was later no friend of Rome!

Eventually Aeneas makes it to the coast of Italy where apparently there are already a lot of people living, all of whom seem to know all about Greece and Troy. That's when the battles start, and the flood of characters. This was the most boring part since yes, the battles were exciting, but every time someone new shows up, you are introduced to his name, his ancestry, where he's from...and then he dies. Then the next guy comes along and it repeats, its a bit like if you had to spend ten minutes getting to know a Star Trek "red shirt" before he gets killed off, usually "fodder" don't get names and dialog. So instead of battle scenes you get long lists of people who there is no point remembering since they will only last another sentence anyway.

On the whole though, I had always expected Homer and Virgle to be snorefests, really boring literature that is hard to slog through. And while there is a bit of slogging, and the difficulty of language depends on translator, on the whole these are exciting tales of gods, heroes and monsters, and I am still amazed as to how much these tales still resonate with us. After all just in the past couple of years there has be The Song of Achilles, Circe, A Thousand Ships, The Silence of the Girls, and so many others.