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Summary of the Aeneid by Virgil
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Summary of the Aeneid- book by book, by Virgil
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also encounters Dido. He tries to talk to her but she rejects him.his father Anchises, and sees the spirits of future Roman heroes, waiting to be born. He
She leads Aeneas down to the underworld, where he sees a lot of spooky stuff, talks with
• Their first stop is Cumae, in the Bay of Naples, where they visit the Sibyl, a prophetess.
Italy with his A-team.
jazzed about going to Italy as he is, Aeneas leaves some people in Sicily and sails on to
convinces the Trojan women to set fire to the ships. Realizing that not everyone is as
a year before. While the Trojans hold athletic contests in the old man's honor, Juno
• A storm forces the Trojans to land in Sicily – at the exact place where they buried Anchises
Dido kills herself.
He sends the god Mercury down to tell him to get moving. Aeneas does as he's told, and
Then Jupiter gets worried that Aeneas is abandoning his destiny of founding a new city.
• Aeneas and the Trojans end up wintering in Carthage, and he and Dido become an item.
Overall Summary (2)
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Overall Summary (1)
• After the destruction of Troy, the Trojan prince Aeneas leads a small band of survivors in
search of a new home in Italy. Unfortunately, as they sail on their way, they get spotted
by the goddess Juno.
• Juno hates the Trojans because of an old grudge, and because they are destined to
become the Romans, who will destroy Carthage, her favorite city. Conspiring with the god
of the winds, Juno whips up a storm, forcing the Trojans to take refuge in – you guessed
it – Carthage.
• Luckily, Aeneas has connections. In fact, his mom, Venus, is the goddess of connections.
She introduces him to Dido, the beautiful queen of Carthage, who is recently widowed.
Venus gets Cupid, the personification of love, to make Dido fall madly in love with Aeneas.
• That night, at a banquet in his honor, Aeneas tells Dido the story of how Troy was captured,
and how he escaped, carrying his father, Anchises, on his back, and leading his son,
Ascanius, by the hand. (His wife, Creusa, died in the chaos – making Aeneas single, too.)
• Next, Aeneas recounts he and his fellow refugees' wanderings over the sea, including their
close encounters with various weird mythological creatures. Aeneas's story ends with the
death of his father, Anchises.
, made by the god Vulcan. It is decorated with scenes from the glorious future of Rome.
• After Aeneas sets out to speak to them, Venus comes down and gives him some armor
Pallas. He also tells Aeneas to join forces with the Etruscans.
Aeneas does as he's told and Evander lends him some troops, including his own son,
dream and tells him to make an alliance with the Arcadian King Evander who lives upriver.
• While the Italians are gathering allies, the god of the River Tiber appears to Aeneas in a
• This provokes a war between the Italians and the Trojans.
gamekeeper.
crazed with rage. Then she tricks Ascanius to shoot a stag kept as a pet by Latinus's
Turnus. Seeing her opportunity, Juno sends a Fury down to make both Amata and Turnus
• The problem is that Amata, Latinus's wife, wants their daughter to marry the local prince
a foreign husband; he offers her to Aeneas in marriage.
Latinus, the local king, has received an oracle saying his only child, Lavinia, must marry
• Fired up by what he has seen in the underworld, Aeneas sails to Latium. As it happens,
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Overall Summary (4)
• Meanwhile, in Aeneas's absence, Turnus and his men attack the Trojan fort, but are unable
to capture it.
• That night, two Trojan warriors, Nisus and Euryalus, try to break through the Italian lines
to reach Aeneas, but end up being killed by an Italian patrol.
• Two days later, Aeneas arrives with his Arcadian and Etruscan allies. In the battle that day,
Turnus kills Pallas.
• The next day, Aeneas and the Italians agree on a twelve-day truce to bury their dead, but
it is broken three days later. The ensuing battle leads to the death of Camilla, a warrior
queen allied with Turnus.
• That evening, Turnus decides to fight Aeneas one-on-one for Lavinia and the kingdom.
Unfortunately, the next day, when they are about to fight their duel, the nymph Juturna
(Turnus's sister) provokes one of the Italians to throw a spear at the Trojans, starting a
new battle.
• After much fighting, Aeneas finally comes head-to-head with Turnus and wounds him with
his spear. As Turnus begs for mercy, Aeneas considers sparing him – until he sees that
Turnus is wearing a belt he stole from Pallas. Enraged, Aeneas kills Turnus with his sword.
,• Sure enough, things start to look bad: three ships crash and three get stuck on sandbars.
Troy. That would have been a lot better than the death that is about to befall them.
• As the storm starts to pick up, Aeneas exclaims how he wishes he had died back home in
stir up a storm against them.
the East Wind and the South Wind. They speed down to where the Trojans are sailing and
• He takes his spear and pounds on the mountain where the winds are locked up. Out come
he doesn't.)
stuff already. (It is unclear whether Aeolus accepts the nymph or not, though it seems like
• Aeolus tells Juno that her wish is his command – after all, she has given him a lot of sweet
nymphs to marry, in return for his trouble.
• Juno tells Aeolus to stir up the sea against the Trojans; she says she'll give him one of her
Jupiter).
• The first thing she does is go find Aeolus, the king of the winds (he was appointed by
like this one bit, and decides to give him a hard time, whether the Fates like it or not.
• Juno first catches sight of Aeneas and his fleet as they are sailing past Sicily. Juno doesn't
Book 1 (2)
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Book 1 (1)
• Virgil begins by announcing his theme. He is going to be telling the story of how Aeneas
made his way from Troy to Italy and founded the precursor to the modern city of Rome.
(That's modern from Virgil's perspective – i.e., the first century B.C.)
• Virgil also reveals that Aeneas is going to have a really, really crummy time of it. This, he
explains, is because the goddess Juno is mad at him.
• Juno – the Roman name for the Greek goddess Hera is mad at Aeneas for two reasons.
• The first reason is because Aeneas is a Trojan. Juno hates the Trojans because Paris, a
Trojan prince, once picked Venus (a.k.a. Aphrodite) over her and Minerva (a.k.a. Athene)
in a beauty contest. This made the two Olympian Idol losers take the Greeks' side during
the Trojan War.
• The second reason Juno hates Aeneas is because she loves Carthage, a Phoenician city
in Northern Africa (in modern-day Tunisia, to be precise).
• Juno knows that, many years later, Rome and Carthage are destined to fight a series
of three major wars. These wars, known as the Punic Wars, resulted in the complete
destruction of Carthage. Because Aeneas is on his way to found Rome – well, you get
the picture
,
they might even look back nostalgically on these hardships.
how much they have suffered already. He tells them to look on the bright side – one day
• Then he takes them down to the shore, and gives his men a speech reminding them of
for each of his ships.
• Instead, he finds a troop of wild deer. Aeneas chases after them and shoots seven – one
any sign of the lost ships. He doesn't see them.
• In the meantime, Aeneas and his comrade Achates climb a nearby hill to scan the sea for
They make a fire and eat grain by the seashore.
• Once they have pulled into a convenient natural harbor, Aeneas and his men disembark.
This happens to be Libya.
• After that close call, Aeneas and his remaining ships decide to head for the nearest land.
Before he's even done talking, the storm ends.
• Neptune immediately tells off the winds for stirring up the ocean without his permission.
He pokes his eyes out of the water, and isn't pleased with what he sees.
• Just then, though, Neptune, the god of the sea, hears the commotion going on above him.
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Book 1 (4)
• We are told that Aeneas is putting on a brave face for his men – inside, he feels more grief
for their lost companions than anyone else. Meanwhile, the Trojans feast on the deer and
get their strength back.
• That evening, Jupiter, the king of the gods, is looking down at the world.
• Just then, up comes Venus, the goddess of love, who also happens to be Aeneas's mom.
Venus complains to Jupiter about how Aeneas and his men have to suffer so much, when
other Trojans, like a guy called Antenor, have already been able to settle in various parts
of Italy.
• Jupiter says, "Chill. I'm still going to let Aeneas make it to Italy." He then explains how
Aeneas, when he gets to Italy, is going to have to fight a war against the local tribe of the
Rutulians. After that, he will reign for only three years – but then his son, Ascanius, will
rule for another thirty years in the new capital of Alba Longa (don't worry if you haven't
heard of it).
• Alba Longa will be the headquarters of the Trojans in Italy for three centuries, until the
queen and priestess Ilia gets pregnant by Mars, the god of war, and gives birth to Romulus
and Remus. (Are things starting to sound a bit more familiar?)
• Romulus will found Rome (aha!). Jupiter says he will give the Romans unlimited power.
This power will reach its summit during the reign of Caesar (that is, the Emperor Augustus),
which will bring about a great era of peace.
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