The fleet, led by Aeneas, is on a voyage to find a second home. This is consistent with her role throughout the Homeric epics.Īlso in the manner of Homer, the story proper begins in medias res (into the middle of things), with the Trojan fleet in the eastern Mediterranean, heading in the direction of Italy. He then explains the reason for the principal conflict in the story: the resentment held by the goddess Juno against the Trojan people. Virgil begins his poem with a statement of his theme ( Arma virumque cano ., "Of arms and the man I sing .") and an invocation to the Muse, falling some seven lines after the poem's inception ( Musa, mihi causas memora ., "O Muse, recount to me the causes ."). This is, however, a rough correspondence, the limitations of which should be borne in mind. These two-halves are commonly regarded as reflecting Virgil's ambition to rival Homer by treating both the Odyssey 's wandering theme and the Iliad 's warfare themes. The Aeneid can be divided into halves based on the disparate subject matter of Books 1–6 (Aeneas' journey to Latium in Italy) and Books 7–12 (the war in Latium). See also: Characters in the Aeneid and Parallels between the Aeneid and Homer's Iliad and Odyssey
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The problem is that that speech is ambiguous. Building on Feeney’s ‘paradox’ regarding the juxtaposition, this paper reinterprets the Catalogue by way of extrapolating from Anchises’ speech possibly profound implications regarding Rome’s future heroes. The juxtaposition of the Catalogue of Heroes and Anchises’ presentation of the fate of souls immediately preceding it in Book 6 of the Aeneid is a meaningful one.