Look, I know that we have already talked about this in class, but the Romans literally took everything that made Greece great, skewed it, and made it about them (let's be honest, this is certainly not unheard of, but it should be noted that the Romans did it first!). For example, lets look at the example of Odysseus. In The Iliad, Odysseus is, by far, the most strategic and wisest friend of Achilles and a fantastic leader of Greek forces. When Virgil decides to write a new epic, he takes this Odysseus, throws him in the trash, and creates Ulysses. Ulysses was a hated person by all of the sons of Ilium, often described as a "ruffian", full of "guile and envy" (Virgil 2.10, 122). Aeneas never mentions Ulysses' hand in the idea of the Trojan Horse (discussed in The Odyssey, I believe), thus reducing his character even more. I will grant that Ulysses' many adventures in The Odyssey make a surprise guest appearance when the Teucrians meet one of his former crewmates, but even in that, Odysseus/Ulysses/Stan Lee is painted as a horrible man who completely forgets his crewmates at the first sign of danger (3.817).
In all seriousness, I believe one of the reasons for Virgil creating this negative persona for a famous hero is completely political. Virgil is (to my knowledge) the only writer of epics for the Roman Empire. Before this, Homer was the big name, and he was a barbarous Greek! Instead of completely eradicating these ancient stories that Homer told, risking sacrilege and almost certain death, Virgil "Romanizes" the story by taking the one truly good character Homer created and made him barbaric, thus magnifying the power of Rome.
I commented on Caroline's and Clabo's posts.
Hi Jamie! You made an interesting point when you mentioned Virgil's "Romanizing" the Iliad. It makes sense to me that Rome would want to create their own version of Homer's work. Since the Iliad was so central to Greek culture and religion, the Romans would certainly have wanted to add it to their own melting pot of religions.
ReplyDeleteJamie, I think you make a very good point. The Romans were always trying to one-up the Greeks so Virgil turning Odysseus into a horrible man seems fitting. I like to call what the Romans did plagiarizing since they took what the Greeks had, like mythology, and basically just changed the names in the hopes that no one would notice.
ReplyDeleteI think Virgil was trying to personify a point of that the Romans thought they were the best civilization in history, and so everyone else's heroes are to be depicted as horrible knock-offs and shams in order to uphold the narrative of this "magnificence" Rome thought they had. I agree with you on that, it was entirely political, but it was also a bit moral in that if he painted another nation's heroes as god-like, he may very well lose his head for treasonous "propaganda."
ReplyDelete