YMMV / The Aeneid

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • An inter-book example. Aeolus is seen in both The Odyssey and The Aeneid. In The Odyssey, he is seen as a splendid guy with a fertile kingdom — in the Aeneid he is seen as a jerk in a hollow barren cave, who screws over Aeneas for an arranged marriage with one of Juno's nymphs.
  • The same goes for Odysseus, who is presented in the Aeneid as more of a slimy trickster than a hero. In The Odyssey, Odysseus is a hero precisely because he is a slimy trickster, but that attitude did not fly to a Roman audience.
  • The most difficult one is Helen. In one scene, she's suffering a total breakdown. In another, she's gleefully killing Trojans. It's possible to reconcile the two, but there's such a disparity that it may be one of the incomplete parts.
  • The difference makes sense as by Virgil's time, Greeks are targets of vilification (for example the infamous line "timeo Danaos et dona ferentis" - I fear Greeks even bearing gifts). Demonizing the famous Greek leaders also makes the Trojans look better. Though interestingly enough, Diomedes, the guy who kicked Aeneas' ass in the Iliad, is portrayed in a positive light.
  • Mezentius's refusal to worship the gods is supposed to make him look like a monster. Instead, it makes him look like a badass.
  • Since Virgil Died During Production, the finale where Aeneas kills Turnus and the story abruptly stops is regarded by some as a He Who Fights Monsters moment. Where Aeneas despite being noble and driven by Gods finally proves himself to be as brutish as common soldiers and his enemies.
  • One reading of the text is that Aeneas is actually a Nominal Hero; not only does he frequently screw up, but the events of his life strongly parallel those of Odysseus and Achilles - indeed, his last actions of the story are burning down a city over a woman and executing a surrendering enemy over a friend's armor. This one tends to go hand-in-hand with the interpretation that Aeneas is meant to resemble Augustus, who commissioned the story and whom Virgil reportedly wasn't fond of.
  • In the 19th century, the book was commonly interpreted as being about the glories and costs of imperialism, with Aeneas considered a model empire-builder who continually suppresses his own personal desires for the greater glory of founding the Roman empire. But in the 20th century, which was marked by massive population displacement, it's been reinterpreted by a critic such as George Steiner as being about homelessness, with the Trojans considered as refugees displaced by the Greek sacking of Troy.
• Evil Is Cool: Later Italian authors and readers tend to admit that they find the antagonists or the bad guys more interesting — Camilla of the Vosci, Mezentius and Turnus.
• Memetic Mutation: "[T]imeō Danaōs et dōna ferentīs." (literally "I fear the Greeks even bearing gifts.") Often rendered as "Beware Greeks bearing gifts."
• Older Than They Think:
  • The phrase "Arms and The Man" (the title of a Shaw play) is from the first sentence of the epic and the memorable line translated as something like "going to hell is easy; it's getting back which is the hard part" might be considered the origin of the phrase To Hell and Back.
  • There's also Virgil's description of Dido re-discovering love as re-kindling "an old flame." (Though the 'flame' is her sexual feelings more generally rather than a passion for a specific former lover, as it is usually used in English.)
  • "We each have our own demons to face" is from the sixth book, though it's far more literal than most modern uses: it's literally about being punished for one's sins in the underworld.
• Signature Scene:
  • The scene where Aeneas sees the mural of the Trojan War in Carthage and states, "sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt" ("The world is a world of tears, and the burdens of mortality touch the heart" — Translated by Robert Fagles) more often shortened as "Lacrimae Rerum" and colloquially paraphrased as "these are the tears of things". This scene comes very early in the poem, in Book 1 around line 400, and it is generally considered one of the most emotional and touching moments in antiquity, since it has Aeneas mourning about how his Trojan people are gone forever with only a mural left to commemorate them.
  • The flashback to the Trojan War and actually depicting the Trojan Horse is the earliest surviving instance in antiquity of the Trojan horse scene actually being represented. In the earlier poems and cycles, the horse was never actually represented on-screen, but stated in passing. Thanks to Pop-Cultural Osmosis, many think The Iliad and/or The Odyssey begins and/or ends respectively with the Trojan Horse not knowing that The Aeneid is where it really starts.
  • Aeneas exiting Troy carrying his father on his shoulders with his household gods is one of the most well-known moments◊ in Western Literature. Frequently cited for its incredible dramatic emotion and often considered one of the key images of exile.
  • Aeneas in the Underworld, where he meets the ghosts of the past, is often cited by later authors for its Worldbuilding (e.g. the exit either via Gates of Horn and Ivory) and the moment where Jupiter comes and promises Aeneas that he and the Trojans would become the Romans and finally inherit an empire without end.
• The Woobie:
  • Aeneas. When he's introduced, he's bawling his eyes out over the threat of immediate death by drowning (mainly because they were doing so well immediately before Juno convinced Aeolus to whistle up that storm). Of his massive family, 95% are either dead or enslaved; his home is gone; every place he tried to settle turned out to be totally unsuitable; he gets caught up in a liaison with Dido and eventually gets comfortable, but a divine messenger orders him to dump Dido; yet more hardships of travel ensue; his new friend dies... Yeah, he's having a bad time.
  • Dido is also portrayed quite sympathetically. She was betrayed by her brother, who murdered her husband, and when she thought she had found happiness again, the gods decreed she wasn't allowed to keep it. It helps that Cupid personally caused Dido to be lovesick for Aeneas, thus making their eventual liaison an encounter that came to be because of circumstances beyond their control.
  • Turnus skirts this during the parts when Virgil describes how he is doomed to die, and when one remembers that he didn't initially want the war at all and only got involved because of Juno and Allecto's manipulations.

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