Aeneid - Revision Flashcards
When was the Aeneid written?
Written in 19BC but started in 70BC.
What is the Aeneid about?
Aeneas who founded Latium in 753BC
When did Aeneas found Rome?
753BC
What does the poem do politically?
The Aeneid supports Augustus. Augustus came into power in 31 BC at the Battle of Actium where he defeated Antony and Cleopatra. The poem foreshadows the coming of Augustus.
What and where is Troy?
On the North east coast of the Aegean sea, the western coast of Phrygia (modern day Turkey). The city which was destroyed during the Trojan war. Aeneas is a Trojan.
What and where is Italy?
The country Aeneas is journeying to, in which he will found a new city for the Trojans. East from Greece and Troy.
What and where is Carthage?
Carthage is Dido’s new city she is building in north Africa (in modern day Tunisia). Juno is very protective over it.
Where is the Tiber?
A river in Rome.
What and where is Samos
City sacred to Juno - a Greek island in the eastern Aegean Sea, separated from Turkey by the mile-wide Mycale Strait. It contained a very old and famous temple to Juno.
What and where is Tyre?
A city in modern Lebanon, home to the Carthaginian Queen Dido before she had to flee from her tyrannical brother Pygmalion. She bought the Tyrians to Carthage in Libya where she is building them a city. Opposite cyprus
What were the punic wars?
These were wars that the Romans reading the Aeneid would know about but they were in Aeneas’s future. Carthage and Rome fought, and Carthage was burnt to the ground, which is why Juno hates Aeneas because in the future he destroys her favourite place.
What and where is Lavinium?
Lavinium is the name which Aeneas’s city will have in Italy, named after his new wife Lavinia (south east of modern Rome).
Where and what is Libya?
Libya is a country in North Africa where Carthage is being built.
Where and what is Argos?
A Greek city which houses temple to Juno - in the eastern Peloponnese.
Why does Juno hate the Trojans?
Because:
1) The trojans eventually many years after Aeneas destroy Carthage in the punic wars, she loves Carthage.
2) Because Paris was a Trojan and did not choose her as the most beautiful goddess.
3) Ganymede was also a Trojan and was her husband’s ring bearer, she was jealous of the attention he received.
What and where is Sicily?
It is an island at the bottom of Italy north of Carthage, and where Aeneas on his boats passes.
What is Teucer?
One of the first kings of Troy, so it is used to mean Trojan by Juno and Venus
What is Pallas?
Pallas is Athena, referring to her in this way is a homerism.
What is the story of Pallas harming Ajax?
During the Sacking of Troy, Locrian Ajax entered the temple of Athena and there found Cassandra, daughter of King Priam. Cassandra was hanging tight to a statue of Athena, but ignoring the sanctuary that this action should have offered Cassandra, Ajax forcibly removed her from the temple. Some even tell of Ajax the Lesser raping Cassandra in the temple.
The story of ‘the distant judgement of paris’?
Eris, the goddess of discord, or disagreement, was angry. She had not been invited to the wedding of a king and a sea nymph, and so she decided to instigate a little trouble. She threw a golden apple into the banquet hall. On it was written: “For the fairest,” and naturally, Aphrodite, Athena, and Hera (Juno) each thought that the apple was hers.
Fighting over the precious produce, they brought their dispute before Zeus, and in his great wisdom Zeus decided to bow out. Instead he picked a young, macho, virile studly youth named Paris to act as judge. Each tried to bribe Paris to choose her.
“I shall give you power and wealth,” said Hera.
“I shall give you glory and fame in battle,” said Athena.
“I shall give you the best gift of all,” said Aphrodite.
“The greatest love, desire and passion shall be yours.”
“The golden apple shall go to Aphrodite,” he said. Then he turned to her and asked, “Oh, goddess of love, where shall I find this great love, desire and passion?”
“With Helen, of course, the daughter of Zeus and Leda. Hundreds of suitors tried to win her, and now she is the happy wife of Menelaus, king of Sparta. But I shall make her fall in love with you!”
Aphrodite’s son, Eros, shot an arrow of love into Helen’s heart. She fell deeply in love with Paris and fled with him to Troy, far away on the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea.
Helen’s husband, Menelaus, not to be made a cuckold, called together Helen’s past suitors and said, “We have all taken an oath to protect Helen. We must fight together to bring her home.”
The men agreed, and soon they sailed to Troy with an army aboard the legendary “thousand ships.”
The consequence of Paris taking Helen of Troy (“the face that launched a thousand ships”) was the beginning of the famous Trojan wars and ultimately led to the destruction of Troy itself.
How does Juno disrupt the Trojans in their journey, at the start of the passage?
Juno gets Aeolus, god of the winds, to release them all at once and create a storm. Neptune, who holds jurisdiction over the seas, is affronted by this and calms the storm. He is annoyed that someone else has tampered with his thing. However it is too late, Aeneas and his men are shipwrecked and many men die. Some of the surviving men gather together and eat, lamenting over their lost comrades.
What is the story of Antenor?
Antenor was the counsellor of King Priam of Troy in Greek mythology. He was the son of the noble Aesyetes and Cleomestra. He became one of the most valuable assets of the city of Troy, serving as a wise elder and counsellor. .
Before the start of the Trojan War, Antenor advised the Trojans to return Helen to Menelaus, in order to avoid a conflict, and in general was in favour of a peaceful resolution. Towards the end of the war, he defected and helped the Greeks by opening the gates of the city. As a result, the Greeks did not ransack his house which was marked with a panther skin. After the fall of the city, he was said to have built a city either on the site where Troy had been, or somewhere in eastern Italy. He founded Patavium, the modern day city of Padua.
What are the Illyrian gulfs?
They are gulfs (a deep inlet of the sea surrounded by land) in Illyria
Where and what is Illyria?
Illyria is where Antenor was able to escape from and then set up Padua it is above in Greece after he escaped alive from the Trojan war. It is an area in the western region of the Balkans (north east of Greece) roughly where Croatia is today.
The Romans had conquered it.
Who were the Liburnians?
Illyian tribe. Illyria is in the Balkans, north east of Greece where Antenor set up Padua.
Where is Padua?
Place where Antenor settled close to modern Venice in North East Italy.
