Hector died defending the city of Troy<\/a> and was honored as the greatest warrior in Trojan history.<\/p>\nHowever, his widow, Andromache, continued to feel his absence and mourn his death. Andromache also lost her son, Astyanax, during the war, and her sorrow could not be contained.<\/strong> She has lost her family through the conflict in Troy and nothing in this world could placate or replace the loss that she felt. Virgil conveys the idea that clashes are violent and have untold psychological, emotional, physical, and financial effects on their survivors.<\/p>\nAeneas and his men also discover the dead body of Polydorus, a prince of Troy, and they are moved to sorrow. Polydorus\u2019 remains remind them of the Trojan warriors that lost their lives in defense of Troy.<\/strong> It also paints the horrid picture of the horror of war and why it should be avoided at all costs especially given the frivolous cause of the Trojan War. The effects of violence can be devastating even on the warriors that partake in it, as we encounter in Book 3 of the Aeneid.<\/p>\nThe Fate of Dido and Other Violent Acts<\/h2>\n
Dido, the Queen of Carthage, committed suicide<\/strong> by stabbing herself with the sword of Aeneas and dying on a funeral pyre. In this part, we witness a slight shift from the violence of wars and conflicts to violence perpetrated on oneself.<\/p>\nDido killed herself because Aeneas couldn\u2019t reciprocate her sacrificial love<\/strong> for him. She gave her all in the relationship she built with the epic hero, but Aeneas put his mission of founding Rome above Dido.<\/p>\nUnknown to Dido, she was just a tool<\/strong> that Juno used to prevent Aeneas from fulfilling his destiny of founding Rome. However, Jupiter sends Mercury, the god of messages and communication, to remind Aeneas of his mission.<\/p>\nNonetheless, Mercury then advises him to leave in the dead of night<\/strong> to avoid Dido\u2019s pleas and tears. Aeneas obliges and waits till everyone is asleep, and he creeps out of Carthage when Dido finds out the following day, that she had killed herself.<\/p>\nThe Carnage at Latium<\/h3>\n
However, we return to the destructive acts of war when Aeneas arrives in Latium and marries Princess Lavinia. The princess had earlier been betrothed to the leader of the Rutuli people,<\/strong> Turnus, but her father, King Latinus, changed his mind and gave her to Aeneas.<\/p>\nOn the other hand, Juno, who has always hated Aeneas,<\/strong> causes Alecto, one of the Furies, to incite Lavinia\u2019s mother to thwart the marriage. Lavinia\u2019s mother, Amata, hides her daughter in the woods and prompts the women of Latium to instigate a war between Aeneas and Turnus.<\/p>\nAlecto also causes Ascanius to wound the sacred deer of Sylvia, the daughter of Tyrrheus. This sparks another disastrous war that destroys several lives<\/strong> and property in Latium. The Aeneid ends with further violence as notable warriors like Pallas, Camilla, Arruns and Lausus lose their lives. Aeneas then faces off with Turnus as they agree that single combat should end all hostilities.<\/p>\nThe gods also take sides and try to influence the duel’s outcome, but Aeneas wins. Queen Amata also kills herself by hanging after learning that Aeneas killed Turnus in the duel.<\/strong> Once again, we encounter the destructive effects of war as the people of Rutulli lose their revered champion, and King Latium loses his beloved wife.<\/p>\nConclusion<\/h2>\n
So far, we\u2019ve discussed the various instances of conflicts in the Aeneid and their catastrophic effects on the warriors and their relatives. Here is a summary points<\/strong> of all that this article has covered:<\/p>\n\n- The Aeneid is an epic poem<\/a> filled with various forms of violence, including suicide, from the beginning to the end.<\/li>\n
- Aeneas narrates how Troy fell at the hands of the Greeks and how he had to escape with his family from the city only to realize that he had left his wife behind.<\/li>\n
- He encounters the widow Andromache, the wife of Hector, who is still mourning the loss of her family, and we learn how war affects the relatives of the warriors.<\/li>\n
- Aeneas\u2019 encounter with Dido introduces us to another form of violence, suicide, which Dido commits after she learns that her husband, Aeneas, has abandoned her.<\/li>\n
- The Aeneid ends in a war when the epic hero and Turnus face off in a duel after princess Lavinia\u2019s hand is given in marriage to Aeneas instead of Turnus as promised.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Though violence in the epic poem is a means of conquering and surviving,<\/strong> its damages the spirit of both the victor and the vanquished as they both suffer terrible losses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Violence in the Aeneid explores the subjects of conquest and defeat, glory and infamy, that characterized the establishment of the Roman Empire. The poem depicts the exploits of Aeneas whose heroic acts led to the founding of Rome, which later became an empire under Julius Caesar. Though the poem is filled with violence, the brutality…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2051],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ancient-literature.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23358"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ancient-literature.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ancient-literature.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ancient-literature.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ancient-literature.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23358"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/ancient-literature.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23358\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23480,"href":"https:\/\/ancient-literature.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23358\/revisions\/23480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ancient-literature.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ancient-literature.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ancient-literature.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}