Civilization #17: Homer, Vergil, and the War for the Soul of Rome

Okay, good morning. This is going to be a very long class today, and I'm going to throw a lot of information at you. The reason why is I want to summarize and review what we've learned about Rome so far, comparing and contrasting it to the Greeks, and look forward to how the Romans and the Greeks will influence the development of Western civilization, including Christianity. So I'll be throwing a lot at you today. If you have questions, please let me know. If I'm being unclear, please let me know. Just raise your hand.

All right, let's review what we know so far. The Romans and the Greeks are very different civilizations. If you remember, the Greeks are scattered across the Aegean and across the Mediterranean. They have colonies all over the place. So the Greeks are primarily focused on trade, especially with the great empires of the Near East: Egypt, Mesopotamia and Persia. These are the three great civilizations that we will discuss starting next week. The Greeks have colonies all over these three civilizations, and as such the Greeks are able to absorb new ideas pretty easily. Because the Greeks are focused on trade, maritime trade, they are very open-minded people.

So that's Greek civilization. The Romans are completely different because they are across the Adriatic in Italy and they are inland, so they are much more insular and conservative people than the Greeks. Also, the Romans have historically been surrounded by very aggressive people, including the Latins, the Sabines, the Etruscans, and so Rome has always had to struggle to survive in this very hostile environment. In order to survive, they developed a cultural system that made them the world's greatest military machine.

The three pillars of this culture are, first, piety: obedience and loyalty to the gods, to Rome and to your fathers. The second principle is the idea of liberty, which puts the nobility at the very heart and center of Roman society. Liberty means no kings, no dictators, no tyrants. And the third and most important pillar is the idea of res publica, the public good. The idea here is everyone must sacrifice himself for the honor and glory of Rome. In fact, it was a competition: you want prestige by winning new territory for Rome. This is a great system if you are a poor small nation always at war and under threat from larger nations. So remember, in 216 BC Hannibal destroyed every Roman army, but at the same time the Romans were able to rally themselves and ultimately defeat Carthage in the Second Punic War.

So it's a great system if you're a small and poor nation always at war with larger nations, but it breaks down when you become a rich, big empire and you're the major hegemon in the area. This system will lead to three major problems in the Roman Republic: corruption and division, right, civil wars. The first one between Marius and Sulla, then between Julius Caesar and Pompey, and then finally between Octavian and Mark Antony.

So now Rome is in crisis, and the ultimate resolution to all these problems was the beginning of the Empire, the emperor. Octavian became the emperor. He is now known as Augustus Caesar. Again, what he does is he centralizes all military authority in his hands. Egypt is now his private estate, and he uses it to bankroll the army, which is now composed of professional soldiers. Before they were citizen soldiers, so they only volunteered when Rome was at war, but now in the Empire there's a professional standing army, and they serve for like 20 years or 30 years, and they're all paid by one man, the emperor, through his land holdings in Egypt.

He also established something called the Praetorian Guard. The Praetorian Guard is basically the secret police of Rome. There are no soldiers in Rome, but there's a Praetorian Guard. They're responsible for peace and security in Rome, and they're only responsible to one man, the emperor.

So even though Caesar has conquered Rome and basically most of the world, he still has three major problems that he must resolve if he is to be emperor fully. The first problem he must solve is the question of legitimacy. Why is he emperor? Traditionally in the ancient world, legitimacy comes from your family. How old is your family? How established is your family? Now, there are two major myths about the founding of Rome. The first is Romulus, the first king of Rome. The second is Lucius Brutus and the founding of the Roman Republic. Now, Julius Caesar and Augustus Caesar do not come from either of these two myths or families. So he has to construct a new myth that shows that his family, called the Julii, go way back. They go back to Romulus. So while he was alive, Julius Caesar planted the seeds of this.

Remember, Julius Caesar is a great myth maker. The myth he came up with is this: there is a man named Aeneas, and Aeneas is from Troy. When Troy was destroyed, Aeneas was able to escape with some survivors, and they came to Italy and they built the foundations that would become Rome. So in other words, Romulus is descended from Aeneas, but Julius Caesar is also descended from Aeneas. That is how Augustus Caesar will cement his legitimacy, by promoting the idea that his ancestor was Aeneas, who is the real founder of Rome. So he's creating a new myth and he's trying to popularize it. That's the first problem he's trying to solve, legitimacy.

The second problem he's trying to solve is a new Roman identity. Remember, the old Roman cultural identity was based on piety, liberty and res publica, and this creates problems for the emperor, because remember Marcus Brutus and Decimus Brutus, they thought they were descendants of Lucius Brutus and therefore they had a responsibility to kill all kings, all tyrants, and that's why they assassinated Julius Caesar. So you can't allow this cultural identity to exist, right, because it will encourage other Brutuses to come kill you, the emperor.

So you have to change this. You have to get rid of the idea of liberty and republic. You have to promote a new Roman identity focused on obedience, piety and obedience.

And then there's a third problem that Augustus Caesar must resolve as emperor, which is this. Even though the Romans have conquered most of the world, basically the Mediterranean world, culturally it's the Greeks who are dominant, because the Greeks have a superior culture. They have Homer, they have Plato, they have Phidias, they have Aeschylus. All Romans acknowledge the fact that Greek culture is superior, and as Romans embrace Greek culture, Augustus Caesar believes they are corrupted. Augustus Caesar believes that Greek culture is too hedonistic, and that's ultimately what happened to Mark Antony. Mark Antony was this good Roman who went off to Egypt and he became corrupted and seduced by Cleopatra and Greek culture. Mark Antony became more Greek, and that's why he betrayed Rome. Augustus Caesar also believed that's why Rome began descending into civil wars, because Rome was starting to embrace Greek culture and it made everyone more individualistic, more hedonistic, more selfish, and that's why they fought these civil wars.

So Augustus Caesar now has to somehow destroy Greek culture, or the influence of Greek culture on the Roman soul, and he knows the very essence, the very basis of Greek culture is Homer, especially the Iliad and the Odyssey. These two books were essentially the Bible of Greek civilization. This is how children were educated when they were young: they memorized the Iliad and they memorized the Odyssey. That's what taught them how to speak well, how to think well and how to debate well.

So Augustus Caesar understands that to defeat Homer, he needs to create a Roman epic to replace Homer in schools. He invited a man named Virgil, who at this time is the greatest living Roman poet, to write another epic in Latin to replace Homer as a cornerstone of the education system. He wrote something called the Aeneid, which is really about the journey of Aeneas as he creates Rome, as he founds Rome. From 29 BCE until 19 BC, for over 10 years, Virgil worked on the Aeneid under direct supervision of Augustus Caesar. So they were basically co-authors. Virgil was a poet, he was the one who could put the words together, but it was Augustus Caesar who had the vision of what the Aeneid should be.

And the Aeneid will accomplish all three of these major challenges. It will establish the primacy of the Julian family as the first family of Rome. It will establish a new Roman cultural identity focused on piety over liberty. And it will show that Greek culture is one of corruption and hedonism and it must be repelled. So you can make the argument that Virgil's Aeneid is the greatest work of propaganda ever in history. That's what I'll show you today.

To do this, what I will do is compare and contrast the Iliad and the Odyssey with the Aeneid to show you how different the Roman worldview is from the Greek worldview. Before I start, any questions about this framework? Is this clear to you? All right, so let's start with the Iliad. And remember, this is a very important idea: Homer and Virgil are two different individuals. They're both poets, but Homer was writing when Greek civilization was just beginning, so he's trying to create the seeds of civilization. He's trying to be a teacher. Virgil is writing when Rome is an empire that is everywhere and everything, it's basically God. So he's trying to teach people how to be part of this empire.

Do you understand? So you can argue that Homer is an educator whereas Virgil is a propagandist.

Okay, so let's talk about the Iliad. The first thing is the Iliad is a very complicated work. It's a universe unto itself, with dozens of characters. I'm only going to focus on one character, Achilles, and tell his story. But please be aware the story I'm telling is my interpretation. There are different interpretations, but there's one interpretation found within the universe of the Iliad.

So the basic story: Helen is the queen of Sparta, married to the king of Sparta, Menelaus. She is seduced by the prince of Troy named Paris. They fall in love and they run off together to Troy. Menelaus and his brother Agamemnon raise an army to rescue Helen, or to retrieve Helen back from the Trojans, who refuse to give her up, and what follows is a 10-year siege of Troy. The Greeks aren't really getting anywhere because Troy is the largest city in the world at this time, it's a walled city, and the Greeks don't know how to break through the Trojan walls. The Iliad starts when Achilles, who is the greatest warrior of the Greeks, gets into a fight with Agamemnon.

They get into a fight and Achilles calls Agamemnon a dog. "You insult me, I fight for you. I will not fight for you. I will let the Trojans kill all of you." Agamemnon, the king, wants to save face, so he tells Achilles, "I don't need you." But in fact the Greeks do need Achilles, because the Trojans have a great warrior named Hector, and Hector recognizes Achilles has retired from the battlefield, and Hector leads his army against the Greeks. They push the Greeks so far back that the Greeks are now trapped on their ships by the coast, and what Hector wants to do is burn down these ships, because if he burns down these ships the Greeks cannot resupply themselves and they will eventually die in Troy.

So at this point Agamemnon has no choice but to beg Achilles to return to the battlefield, because only Achilles can defeat Hector in battle. But Agamemnon doesn't want to lose face, so he sends a delegation of generals led by a man named Odysseus to beg Achilles to return to the battlefield. So Odysseus goes and sees Achilles on a ship and Odysseus says, "Listen, Achilles, we're dying out here.

If you don't fight for us, we're going to die. Hector is destroying us. If you fight for us, Agamemnon will give you everything. All these treasures we are promised in Troy, he will give to you. Agamemnon will give you anything you want. He'll give you the world." And Achilles, because he's proud, says no, I want Agamemnon to come beg me himself. So this goes nowhere, and Agamemnon refuses to come beg, so the Trojans advance further and further and they're about to burn their ships.

Patroclus is best friends with Achilles, and he sees that Achilles is conflicted, because Achilles wants to jump into the fray. Achilles had a prophecy before he came to Troy, and the prophecy is this: he has a choice. He either chooses to die an old man at home and be a nobody, or come to Troy, die young in battle, and be remembered forever as the greatest champion of the Greeks. For Achilles that's not a choice, because for him as a warrior, he loves to fight. He can only achieve eudaimonia in battle. So for him to just sit in a ship and watch the Greeks, his king, destroyed.

It is the worst punishment on earth. At the same time, Achilles is arrogant, he's vain, and he demands Agamemnon come apologize, which Agamemnon is not going to do. Agamemnon would rather see the entire Greek army demolished than apologize to Achilles. So Patroclus tells Achilles, "Listen, let me jump into the battle to save the ships," and Achilles says, "Fine, I will let you stop the Trojan advance, but do not under any circumstances fight Hector in battle." So Patroclus jumps into battle and he fights the Trojans, and then what does he do? He fights Hector, and what happens? He gets killed.

Achilles hears of the death of Patroclus, and Achilles is so angry at the death of his best friend that he forgives Agamemnon. He lets go of his anger at Agamemnon and directs it at Hector. He jumps into battle, he challenges Hector to a duel, and he kills him. Then what he does is he takes Hector's dead body, he ties it to his chariot, and then he drags Hector's body around the walls of Troy. On top of the walls of Troy are Hector's parents, King Priam and Queen Hecuba, and they are screaming in anguish.

They hate this devil who not only killed their son Hector but is now humiliating and mutilating him in front of the entire Trojan people. So at this point you would think that Achilles has achieved immortality. He's defeated Hector in battle, he saved the Greek army, and he'd be very happy, but it turns out he falls into a deep depression. He cannot sleep, he cannot eat, all he does is think about Patroclus, but he's so depressed he can't even cry.

So this is where Homer is really the psychologist, because Achilles is feeling this way because he is wracked with guilt. If you think about it, it wasn't Hector who killed Patroclus, it was Achilles who killed Patroclus. Why? Because Patroclus wouldn't be dead if, A, Achilles had not gotten into that stupid fight with Agamemnon, B, if Achilles just forgave Agamemnon when Odysseus came begging, and C, if Achilles did not agree for Patroclus to go into battle. So without knowing it, because Achilles lacks self-awareness, he is trapped by his guilt over the death of Patroclus and he is taking out his rage on Hector. He is supposed to return Hector's body for a ransom to the Trojans, because everyone believes at this time that the dead can only find peace in the afterlife if they're buried.

So for Achilles to torment Hector's body like this means that Hector can never find peace in the afterlife. His father Priam is back in Troy and he can't sleep either, because he's depressed over what's happening to his son. So eventually the gods broker a peace deal, and they tell Priam to go to Achilles and Achilles will return the body to Priam.

All right, so late one night Priam sneaks into the tent and he's standing behind Achilles, who is busy discussing military matters with his generals. Now at this point Priam can take out a knife and stab Achilles to death, and he wants to, because he's so angry at this man who's killed and mutilated his son. And this is the genius of Homer. Priam kneels down and kisses the hand of Achilles, the man who has killed his beloved son. In response, Achilles stands and he is in awe of this old man who at this moment has demonstrated more courage, more strength than Achilles has ever witnessed. So in his act of submission, Priam has emotionally defeated Achilles, and Achilles is ashamed of himself, and by forgiving Achilles, Priam allows Achilles to now forgive himself.

Okay, does that make sense to you all? The two then start to become friends, because in the face of Priam, Achilles sees his father, and he pities Priam for having lost his son, and in the face of Achilles, Priam sees his son Hector, and they both hug and they cry. This is the first time that Achilles has been able to cry since the death of Patroclus, and these tears release him from the ghost of Patroclus, who is haunting him. And this is how the Iliad ends.

What we've witnessed in the Iliad is a character transformation of Achilles from a merciless, vain and arrogant warrior into a man who is capable of pity, self-reflection and self-forgiveness. You can argue that this is a process of civilization. So the point of the Iliad is, even though it's about war, it's really making the argument that love is the basis of civilization. It is what unites us and inspires us. Love is the unifying force of the universe. Even though Priam and Achilles are the most bitter enemies, because of Priam's love for Hector and because of Achilles' love for his father and Patroclus, they're able to find common ground and become friends.

That's the Iliad. Does that make sense? So again, it is arguably the greatest work of literature in human history, and this is only one interpretation. There are different interpretations, but you can see how rich and complex and sophisticated the Iliad is. If by reading it you'll be inspired to reimagine yourself and the world around you, that's how powerful it is.

All right, now let's move on to the Odyssey. The Iliad is about Achilles and his transformation into self-awareness. The Odyssey is about Odysseus. Unlike Achilles, Odysseus does not want to go to the Trojan War. Achilles jumps at the chance to win glory at Troy, but Odysseus was given a different prophecy, which is this: if he goes to Troy, he will be gone for 20 years. He lives in Ithaca with his wife Penelope and they just had a newborn son, Telemachus. The prophecy is if you go to Troy you'll be gone for 20 years, 10 years at war in Troy, 10 years lost at sea. Now this is a man who loves his family and does not want to go to war. So he pretends to be crazy, insane, and what he does is he takes salt and a plow and he plows the field and salts it, which kills the field.

So clearly this is a sign of madness. But the Greek soldiers who come to retrieve him are determined to get him, because they know that Odysseus is the most strategic and the wisest of the Greeks. He will be the one who will deliver victory to the Greeks in Troy, because Odysseus will come up with the Trojan horse strategy. It is his idea, the Trojan horse strategy. So they need him. To test him, to see if he's really mad, they put his son Telemachus, who's only like six months old, in front of him. If he's really crazy, he would run over his son. If he's not crazy, then he would stop, and obviously he's not going to run over his son. So his trick has been revealed and he's forced to go to war, and he hates going to war, but he's determined to win the war for the Greeks.

The first reason is he believes the Trojans are unjust. How dare you steal another man's wife. The second reason is he wants to build a legacy for his son Telemachus. He wants to go home to Ithaca and tell his son what a hero he is.

He wants to build a legacy for his son. The third thing is he wants to reunite the family which has been broken, Menelaus and Helen, just as he wants to return to his wife Penelope. So this is what we call his worldview, the way he understands the world, and the worldview is what allows us to be human and to exist. The worldview explains to us who we are, what we want and what we should do.

The problem is, after Odysseus comes up with the Trojan horse, they sneak into the city and they open the gates and the Greeks come flooding in, and now it's total mayhem because the Greeks are killing everyone inside the city. Odysseus kills a Trojan soldier who's attacking him. The Trojan soldier falls to the ground, and then suddenly his wife screams at the death of her husband and she comes and sobs at the body of her dead husband. This creates something called dissonance. Dissonance is when the worldview and the reality do not match. There's conflict between the reality and the worldview. Remember, Odysseus came for justice, to build a legacy for his son Telemachus, and to reunite a family, and what he's doing now is destroying families.

The Greeks are just massacring everyone. It's not justice, it's just slaughter, it's just complete mayhem. So what happens is Odysseus is traumatized by what he sees, and this is what we call PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder. After Troy, Odysseus becomes lost at sea. He becomes like a sex slave to a goddess named Calypso. He's stuck on an island for seven years, and there's a goddess called Calypso who's trapped him, and he's basically like a sex slave. Every day when he's not having sex with Calypso, which sucks, he's crying on the beach. He has PTSD and he doesn't want to go home because he's ashamed to face his family. He's so ashamed by what's happened in Troy he cannot face his family, so he's just stuck where he is.

Meanwhile at home, Penelope, his wife, is waiting for him. But after some time people think, oh, he must be dead, so there are about a hundred young men, 100 suitors, who come and demand her hand in marriage. But she refuses to believe Odysseus is dead, so she falls into depression. She's waiting for her husband to return, but all the signs are that he's dead.

She's been courted by 100 suitors and she can't say no to any of them because she's afraid her husband is really dead and she doesn't want to be alone. So she becomes depressed as well, she becomes paralyzed, so she's stuck. This means that Telemachus the son is stuck as well, and he becomes a depressed teenager. Because if Odysseus were dead, he would inherit his legacy, he could become his own man, but Odysseus is not dead yet. No one knows if he's dead or alive, so he's stuck where he is. If Penelope were just to marry and go somewhere else, he would inherit the property, but she's just stuck in her room, so he's depressed as well. So this entire family is depressed. Odysseus is depressed, Penelope, Telemachus, they're all depressed, so they're just stuck there.

Athena, who is the goddess of wisdom, and she favors Odysseus, sees all this from up high on Mount Olympus and she pities the family, and she resolves to bring the family back together again. So she goes and tells Calypso, "Hey, you've had your fun, but you have to let Odysseus go."

So now Odysseus is free to go home, and Athena tells Odysseus, "Listen, when you go home, you can tell Telemachus who you are, but don't tell Penelope or anyone else who you are, because you might be killed." There are 100 suitors who would kill you if they knew who you were. So Athena disguises him as a different person, as a beggar basically.

When Odysseus returns to Ithaca, the first thing he wants to know is, does Penelope still love him? Remember, Odysseus is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. He's lost his ability to fight, you can imagine he's lost his capacity for love, so he doesn't even know if his wife still loves him. So he meets with Penelope, and again he's still disguised. Penelope has no idea who he is and he cannot reveal himself, but he sees Penelope is distraught and he tries to comfort her by telling her that he has seen Odysseus, Odysseus is still alive. Penelope breaks down in tears at the thought that her husband is still alive, and then she asks Odysseus, "How do you know my husband is still alive? Prove to me that you've met my husband."

Now Odysseus says, "I will describe something intimate about him. He has a brooch that he carries on his cloak, and this brooch is beautiful," and he goes into poetic detail and describes the brooch. At this point when Penelope hears this, she breaks down in complete tears, because now she knows this beggar must be my husband Odysseus in disguise. How does she know? Because only Odysseus would know all the details of the brooch. What is the brooch? The brooch is what Penelope gave Odysseus as Odysseus set sail for Troy. It is Penelope's gift to him, and it is a promise to her that he will return. So even though he has lost everything in war and at sea, the brooch is implanted in his mind. The brooch symbolizes his everlasting love for her.

So now that Penelope knows Odysseus has returned, they still have to figure out how to get rid of these 100 suitors, how to kill them, because they're still a threat to the family. So Penelope has this great plan. She's going to organize an archery contest. Odysseus has a bow, and if a suitor can string the bow and shoot a target, then Penelope will marry that suitor.

So she organizes this competition and all the 100 suitors fail one by one. They cannot string the bow together. Then the beggar, who is Odysseus, says, "Let me try," and the moment he strings the bow together, the suitors are afraid, because they know this can only be Odysseus. Only Odysseus can string the bow together and use it. And then one by one, Odysseus takes his bow and he kills all the suitors.

What the bow symbolizes is his identity, who he is. The bow, by stringing it together, represents resurrection, the stringing together of his worldview. He now remembers that he's a father, a hero who fights for justice, he fights to protect his family. That's who he is. So this story is the power of love to heal trauma after war. And again, the main message is love is the unifying force of the world. It is what will heal you, it is what will bring people together. So that's the Odyssey. Does that make sense? And again, the argument is love is the basis of civilization. It is the thing that makes us human. It is what gives us our strength, our courage. Okay, so are you clear about the Iliad and the Odyssey before I move on to the Aeneid?

Any questions?

Okay, let's do the Aeneid. Neither the Iliad nor the Odyssey talks about the Trojan horse, but the Aeneid, the first thing it does is talk about the Trojans. The Trojans wake up one day and they find this huge Trojan horse, wooden horse, outside their gates, and most are like, this must be a Greek trick, let's just burn it down. But then they capture a Greek soldier. This Greek soldier is eloquent, with logic and with brilliance, with power. He tells a false story of how the Greeks became disheartened by the progress of the war and they decide to sail home, and to ensure their safe journey home they built a wooden horse for the gods to win their favor. The story is so moving and so beautiful that the Trojans believe him, and they let the Trojan horse in.

So the Aeneid is not as subtle as the Iliad or the Odyssey. It's propaganda. What this is telling us is this: the real Trojan horse is Greek culture, logic, philosophy and theater. That's what Greek culture is, logic, philosophy and theater, and that's what the Greeks use in order to manipulate the Trojans, to lie to them.

So the message here is, if we Romans embrace Greek culture, embrace logic, philosophy and theater, then our culture will be destroyed. The real Trojan horse is Greek culture, therefore we must resist it at all costs.

So Aeneas wakes up and he finds the city in flames. The Greeks are going around massacring everyone. Aeneas goes and he tries to save Priam. He runs to the palace and Priam is on his altar, and he sees one of his sons being killed by Achilles' son Neoptolemus. Neoptolemus and Priam curses Neoptolemus and he says, "Your father, you insult the honor of your father. Your father was an honorable man, we were friends." And then Neoptolemus goes up to Priam and kills him and says, "My father is dead. Go, you should join him in the Underworld." It is a brutal scene. What this is telling us, again, this is not subtle, there's no place for love, friendship and forgiveness. That's all a lie, it's all just trickery. Only brutality and force will triumph. In the Aeneid, Aeneas is trying to save Priam, but then Priam dies, and then he discovers that hiding somewhere he sees Helen, and he thinks that Helen is the one responsible for all of this.

If she just did her duty, if she just stayed at home where she was supposed to be, this war would have started. So he really wants to kill her. In fact he is about to kill her, then suddenly a goddess named Venus, so the Romans call her Venus, the Greeks call her Aphrodite, and she is the mother of Aeneas, appears before her son and says, "My son, you're destined for greater things. Leave Helen, return to your family."

So Aeneas has no choice but to obey his mother and he runs home and he sees that his family is fine. His son is Julus, he has a father and a wife, and they're fine. So he's like, okay, you guys are fine, I'm going to go and kill some Greeks, I'm going to die with the city, I'm going to fight unto my dying breath to save my city. And the wife and the father are begging him not to go, because you are one man against an entire army, you're going to get killed. But Aeneas is stubborn and he's angry. Suddenly Julus' hair is on fire, and it's like a golden crown, and the father says, "You see, Aeneas, this is a sign.

This is a sign that your son will be the founder of a great empire." We know this empire to be called Rome. And this is what stops Aeneas from committing suicide. It's like, okay, now I understand, it is my duty to save my son, my family. So he carries his father, who is unable to walk, he carries his son, and he carries both of them to safety. They're looking for ships, and his wife follows behind. They get to the ship and he looks around and he discovers his wife has disappeared. He goes back and he discovers that his wife has killed herself. Why? Because she knows that in this new world that they're going to, she can only be a handmaiden. She wants him to embrace the future and let go of the past. Also, she's afraid that if she lives she'd be captured and become a slave to the Greeks, and she does not want to dishonor him like that. So that's what a good wife is. Helen is a bad wife because she's independent and she's looking for love, but a good wife is someone who will kill herself for her husband.

So Aeneas and his people, they're on ships and they end up in Carthage, and they're guests of a queen, Dido, and Dido falls in love with Aeneas.

They get married and Aeneas is very happy in Carthage. The gods look at Aeneas and say, "Hey man, we told you this many times, but you have a destiny to go to Rome. Your son will be the founder of a great empire. That's the plan, that's the destiny, that's your mission, that's your duty. Stop fooling around in Carthage and do what you're told." So Aeneas has to go see Dido and say, "Listen, I have to go," and Dido goes insane because she's in love with Aeneas, and she kills herself.

So the message here again, this is not subtle, the message here is love is a disease, a plague upon the world. It was Helen's love that cost the Trojan War, and it was Dido's love for Aeneas that will cause the war between Carthage and Rome, because before she dies she instructs her people to destroy Rome in the future: "A great city called Rome will arise. You, the Carthaginian people, have a responsibility to honor my memory. Destroy Rome." And that's why Hannibal went to attack Rome.

Okay, again, this is not subtle propaganda. Aeneas ends up in Italy like he's supposed to, and there he meets the local king. His name is Latinus and he's the king of the Latins, and he's mesmerized, stunned by the nobility of Aeneas, and he wants his daughter to marry Aeneas. But his daughter is already supposed to marry another prince called Turnus, and this starts a war between Aeneas and Turnus. This war goes on for a very long time, it's like the Iliad. Turnus kills one of Aeneas's friends, and he sees that the friend of Aeneas has this really nice belt, he takes it for himself, and this belt was a gift from Aeneas to his friend.

Eventually Aeneas and Turnus get into a duel, and Aeneas defeats Turnus, and at the very last minute Turnus gives up, surrenders his sword and begs for mercy. Aeneas wants to show mercy. He's like, I've beaten you, you're no longer a threat, I can show some forgiveness, I can be merciful. But then he sees the belt that he gave his friend and he knows Turnus has killed his friend, and so he just plunges his spear into Turnus, and that's how the Aeneid ends. Now the Aeneid is very confusing for scholars because the ending is pretty awful, and so scholars have debated whether or not Virgil was able to finish the Aeneid.

The argument is the ending is too abrupt, and therefore Virgil couldn't have finished the Aeneid, it's unfinished. If you think about it, it is finished, because remember, in the Iliad we see a character transformation of Achilles, right? Well, we also see a character transformation of Aeneas in this book.

So remember when Aeneas sees Helen, he really wants to kill her, and it took the gods, he only stopped because of the gods. Remember Aeneas wanted to abandon his family and get killed in the streets of Troy, the gods have to send him a message. So another divine intervention. Remember Aeneas wanted to stay at Carthage and be with Dido, so the gods had to send a messenger to tell him, you can't do that, you have to fulfill your destiny and go to Rome. But at the very end, when Aeneas wanted to kill Turnus, the gods didn't have to intervene. He wanted to show mercy to Turnus and he recognized, no, my duty is to kill this guy. You understand? So Aeneas has become the embodiment of piety and duty.

Before, the gods had to instruct him to do his duty. Now he recognizes what his duty is and he embraces it.

Now what's important for us is to remember that throughout this play, oh sorry, throughout this book, there's the idea of destiny, that what Aeneas is doing has been preordained by the gods, because the real purpose of Aeneas is to go to Rome so that his son can build the Roman Empire. So another major message of this book is the end point of history is Augustus Caesar. Everything that is happening is to move towards, converge to Augustus Caesar, because Augustus Caesar will create the Pax Romana, what we call the Roman peace, which is the idea of eternal peace, peace on earth. Remember that before Augustus Caesar there were all these civil wars that were killing millions of people. Well, after Augustus Caesar became emperor there is now the Pax Romana, eternal peace on earth, and this is the end point of history. The Roman Empire will mean there will no longer be any wars, there will no longer be any conflicts. Why? Because what the Roman Empire will do is transition us from love to piety. Homer believed that love is the basis of civilization.

What the Roman Empire will show is that piety is the basis of civilization. Love is the force that comes from within you, it grows you within, but piety is what is told to you, it is what you must accept. Love is what you can feel, love is the embrace of your emotions. Piety means the rejection of your emotions: don't listen to your feelings, listen to what you are told. By embracing your emotions you have imagination, but piety believes imagination is destructive. What matters is stability and harmony. Stability and obedience is what will give peace to the world.

So for Homer, love is the unifying force of the universe, but for Virgil, love is the force that creates conflict in the universe. Think of Helen, think of Dido. For Homer, the imagination is the animating force of the universe, it is what gives life, but for Virgil the imagination is the destructive force of the universe. It is what destroys; basically, you disobey, that creates chaos and conflict. And so we now have a transition from the Greek world to the Roman world, with its focus on piety. What Virgil is trying to create is the idea of eternity, right?

Eternity, something that lasts forever. What Homer was trying to create is the idea of infinity, how we can create the world through our actions and emotions. In the Pax Romana and under Augustus Caesar, all you have to do is obey and the world will be perfect. We have come to the end of history. History has stopped because we have found the perfect model to organize human civilization. We are the perfection, we are the end. So this is the idea of Roman eternity, and this marks a radical transition in Western civilization. Does that make sense? Any questions?

One last point is this. The Romans were like the most non-creative people in the world. They were anti-creative, so everything that they had they took from somewhere else. So the question then is, where do they get the idea of eternity from? Can you? Egypt. Next class I will show you that the Romans are using the Egyptian sense of eternity. All right, so I know this is a lot to take in, so feel free to ask for clarification of any points. Are you okay with sure, well, they, well, I guess Caesar wants some, reject culture, but they can't reject Greek culture because it's so powerful.

So this lecture is not about what happens in reality. This lecture is about the new conception of reality as introduced by the Roman Empire. Eventually this will become the new reality, but it will take time.

Looking ahead, the Romans will introduce a new idea that will make piety and obedience the cornerstone of society. This idea is Christianity. Looking ahead, this is not happening right now, because the conception is not as appealing as the Greek conception. But eventually the Romans will create a new religion called Christianity that will dominate and make piety the cornerstone of society and civilization. Looking ahead, any questions? Okay, so next class we will discuss