Promoting Morality in the Aeneid and Metamorphoses Essay -- Comparison

Promoting Morality in the Aeneid and Metamorphoses Just as the authors of the Bible use an evocative, almost mythological vehicle to convey covenants and laws that scar the lesson tone for Hebrew and Christian societies, Latin poets Virgil and Ovid employ a similarly supernatural method to foster their own societal and moral goals in Roman society. Where Virgils Aeneid depicts Aeneas as the ideal, duty-bound Roman patriarch off from the conflicted Rome of Virgils youth, Ovids Metamorphoses lacks the patriotic undertones of Virgils epic. Instead, Ovids lighthearted Metamorphoses depicts several mythical stories - some non unlike the etiological justifications found in the early Hebrew scriptures - which account the transitory nature of life and its effect on society. When Augustus defeated Marc Antony at Actium and began the first acts in his rule of what would be one of historys most effective empires, he sought to restore the ethical motive and patriotism characteristic of pr e-civic-war Rome. The brutish Roman patriarch, thought lost in the melee of civil strife, became the common snapping turtle of Augustus propaganda and legislative campaign to once again bring honor and morality to his empire. It is from Virgils unfinished epic The Aeneid that this exemplary citizen arises, one who is not only a fierce warrior but foregoes personal happiness for the welfare of his country as well. Virgils unfinished epic - almost discarded by its author until Augustus intervened - not only serves to smooth over the violence and slaughter of the past civil wars by attributing them to the course of fate but also uses this strife as a tool to carve Aeneas as an ideal patriarchal figure. all(a) these images on Vulcans shield His mothers gif... ...y. 6 Oct. 1999 Gillis, Daniel. Eros and Death in the Aeneid. LERMA, di BRETDCHNEIDER, ROMA, 1983. Henry, Elisabeth. The dynamism of Prophecy, A Study of Virgils Aeneid. Bristol Classical Press, Great Britain, 1989. Lyne, R.O .A.M. Further Voices in Vergils Aeneid. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1987. Mandelbaum, Allen, trans. The Metamorphoses of Ovid. By Ovid. San Diego Harcourt Brace & company, 1993. Poschl, Viktor. The Art of Vergil, Image and Symbol in the Aeneid. Trans. Gerda Seligson, Greenwood Press, Connecticut 1986. Silvestris, Bernardus. description on the First Six Books of Virgils Aeneid. Translated by Schreiber and Maresca. University of Nebraska Press. London, 1979. Quinn, Kenneth. Vergils Aeneid, A fine Description. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London. 1968.