The Journey of Aeneas four white horses, suggesting that there would have to

be war in Italy. They made a sacrifice to Juno, trying to

➔ Troy (ancient city). Aeneas flees the burning city with the appease the goddess and wife of Jupiter, and continued
household gods called the Penates, his son Ascanius, their voyage southward and westward to Tarentum.
his father Anchises. His wife Creusa follows behind but They drifted to Sicily.
gets lost in the mayhem. Aeneas and other Trojans meet ➔ Sicily on the eastern coast, they stayed at the harbor of
up and build ships. the Cyclops. They saw Mount Etna. They met
➔ Thrace. Aeneas originally intended to build a city there Achaemenides who was a Greek abandoned by Ulysses
but blood oozed out of the ground. This was the burial when the Greek crew had visited perhaps a few months
ground of Polydorus, who was the son of King Priam. ahead of Aeneas. Achaemenides related the story of the
They kept going. blinding of the Cyclops, and welcomed the stranger as
➔ Delos was an island in the Aegean Sea. The god Apollo one of them; it showed how the Trojans were inclusive
tells Aeneas to find the place of his ancestors. and welcoming to strangers, and it was a way for Virgil
➔ Crete was an larger island in the Mediterranean Sea, to contrast the attitudes of the Greeks (who abandoned
visiting Knossos, but while sleeping, Aeneas had a stragglers) to the Trojans (who took pity on the
vision that the Penates were telling him to travel to Italy. abandoned man). The short route at this point would
➔ They traveled west, skirting the coast of Greece, and have taken them by Scylla and Charybdis but it was
stopping at the Strophades Islands in the Ionian Sea, treacherous for ships, so they sailed along the longer
which was west of the Peloponnese. Harpies attacked route, around the bottom of Sicily. Aeneas' father
them, were beaten off, but one of them confirmed that Anchises died and was buried in Sicily. They departed.
Italy was indeed their final destination. Juno asked Aeolus, the God of Winds, to start a storm.
➔ Actium in western Greece. They held the Trojan Games. Aeneas and his men were caught out at sea in the
➔ Buthrotum on the mainland of Greece on the western storm. Neptune, God of the Sea, stilled the storm and
side, opposite Corfu. Aeneas meets Andromache who Aeneas, exhausted, made for the nearest coast, which
was the wife of fallen Trojan hero Hector. Andromache was Africa.
was married to a son of King Priam named Helenus and ➔ Carthage. Aeneas and his crew are waylaid here on the
they lived now in Greece, and they had built a little northern coast of Africa. Aeneas meets the beautiful and
kingdom to resemble Troy which Aeneas called Little intelligent Queen Dido from Tyre which is modern day
Troy. Helenus prophesied that Aeneas would know that Lebanon, whose husband Sychaeus was murdered by
he was at his final and proper destination when a white Dido's brother. Dido is building a city and planning its
sow had thirty young. Andromache gave gives of laws, but Aeneas and Dido, by the will of Juno and
mantles to Aeneas' son Ascanius because the little boy Venus, fall in love. They had sexual intercourse in a
reminded her of her dead son Astyanax. cave during a rainstorm, and Dido considered her
➔ Ceraunia off of the coast of Albania was the closest point relationship with Aeneas to be a marriage. But later,
to Italy, on the eastern side of the Adriatic Sea. They Jupiter directs Mercury to remind Aeneas of his duty to
sailed westward to Italy. found the city of Rome, and Aeneas makes preparations
➔ Italy on the southeasternmost point was where they saw to leave, without first informing Dido. She is furious,
the temple of the goddess Minerva and saw a sign of
 saddened, and later commits suicide on a funeral pyre. nevertheless. Different adventures take place in this
Aeneas departs. section of the book which is often compared to the Iliad
➔ Sicily is revisited. A year had passed in Carthage. by Homer; the earlier sections of the sea-faring Aenean
Aeneas decides to hold the Lusus Troiae or Trojan ventures were often compared to the Odyssey by
Games in honor of his dead father Anchises. Juno struck Homer.
fear into the hearts of the women, who set fire to the At one point Turnus kills the best friend of Aeneas, the
ships in an attempt to prevent further sea voyages; allied warrior Pallas, which causes grieving by the parent
Ascanius tries to stop them, but fails, but gods prevent of Pallas. The warrior maiden Camilla fought against the
most of the ships from burning. Aeneas is discouraged, Trojans, and fought brilliantly in her aristeia, or episode
but the prophet Nautes tells him to keep going; at this of particularly excellent battling, but she was killed by the
point, Aeneas lets each Trojan determine for himself or Trojan Arruns. A truce between the two sides eventually
herself whether to keep going; many Trojans, including holds, and an agreement that Aeneas and Turnus
almost all of the women, decide to stay on Sicily. should fight in a one-on-one combat. At one point in the
➔ Cumae on the west coast of Italy is where they landed. battle, Turnus agrees that Aeneas can have the hand of
Aeneas met the Cumaean Sibyl, a goddess who acted Lavinia in marriage, but Aeneas sees Turnus wearing
as his guide and brought him to the Underworld which the sword-belt of his former fallen friend Pallas, and
was overseen by the brother of Jupiter, or Hades. Aeneas is once more consumed with anger, and Aeneas
➔ In the Underworld, Aeneas enters by means of the kills Turnus. This ends the story.
Golden Bough, and crosses the River Styx on the boat
of Charon. Aeneas sees Dido who refuses to speak to
Moral Lessons from the Aeneid
him or even look at him; he sees fallen heroes from the
Trojan War; he sees Sisyphus; he meets the spirits of
future leaders of Rome; and others including Silvius,
Romulus, Numa, Augustus Caesar, and others. Virgil
uses a philosophy of reincarnation to justify how he
could permit a character from the past have the power of
seeing people from the future.
➔ In Latium, which is north and west along the western
coast of Italy, Aeneas travels up the river Tiber and
becomes engaged in a war with his rival Turnus. Turnus
hoped to marry princess Lavinia, the daughter of King
Latinus and Queen Amata, but the king thought that his
daughter should marry a stranger, as foretold in a
prophecy. Venus enlisted the help of her husband
Vulcan to make armor for Aeneas including a famous
shield which showed future scenes of Roman glory
which Aeneas could not understand, but enjoyed