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Virgil's time is in the first century 
BCE. 

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His dates are 70 to 19 in the first 
century before the common era. 

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he lives through very interesting times, 
tumultuous is not even enough of an 

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accurate word to describe it. 
The Roman Empire that we see here is now 

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emerging into historical time. 
It is this massive massive conglomeration 

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of many different nations, many different 
groups that Rome has brought under its 

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sway. 
And the Romans are rightfully amazed at 

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their own powers. 
Now, they're top dog in Mediterranean. 

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Others had been, but no one had quite 
done it as well as the Romans did. 

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and now, they're going to have this 
position as the centerpiece of this giant 

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empire. 
And what does it mean now to, to be here, 

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to be in this position? 
it means a couple of different things. 

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Number one, you've got a militaristic 
side to your cultural background. 

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Romans are obviously just, justly proud 
of their military capability. 

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It also means that though, 
in the, if you've lived through the 

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previous century, along with Virgil that 
you're a fratricidal group. 

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you've seen lots of awful civil wars as 
those who were in positions of power turn 

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their their sights on each other brought 
nasty awful wars of Romans against 

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Romans. 
Trying to figure who's going to be the 

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maximum leader of this new imperial 
structure. 

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you've seen a dissolution of a past way 
of being. 

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The Roman Republic is now gone. 
and that's a frightening new world. 

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Where do we exists and where do we fit in 
all this, we Romans? 

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seems like really important hunks of what 
it is to be Roman are now all up for 

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grabs. 
And it's very difficult for people to 

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figure out what, what comes next. 
Along comes a figure named Augustus. 

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Augustus rules Rome as the first emperor 
proclaiming himself to be carrying 

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forward old traditions but what he's 
really doing is entirely remaking things. 

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realizes now in this kind of great tumult 
that Rome needs a new sense of itself. 

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he also has great respect for the 
importance of the arts. 

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He nurtures and supports poets, Virgil 
among them. 

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Coming after this time of great tumult, 
Augustus realizes and puts his finger on, 

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the need to have a new sense of what it 
is to be Roman. 

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Virgil shares that view and says that, 
yes indeed, we do need to have a sense of 

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what it is to be Roman. 
and undertakes the project of building 

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this through this mythic form of epic 
poetry on Homeric and other precedents. 

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and trying to give in this form some 
strong sense of what this identity's 

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going to be. And it's true, the project 
that Virgil has in his poetic form works 

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in tandem with the political project that 
Augustus has of building a new sense of 

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what Rome is all about. 
Now, there are many histories to Rome. 

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Lots of different ways of looking back 
into the past to figure out where Rome 

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came from and what it's all about. 
Aeneas is someone that we've met before. 

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We see him in Homer's epics. 
he shows up in the Iliad as an important 

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Trojan hero. 
He's not the most important by any means, 

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but he's an important Trojan hero. 
and the, in the Homeric Hymn to 

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Aphrodite, we have some connection with 
Aeneas. 

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Actually, he shows up there. 
He's born when Zeus is fed up with 

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Aphrodite's mischievousness and making 
gods fall in love with mortals. 

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and he makes it happen to Aphrodite. 
Now, it, the, the background that we have 

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in this early past in the Homeric story 
of the Iliad and then in the Homeric 

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Hymns is of a character who's not exactly 
warmly embraced. 

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Aphrodite's a little embarrassed now. 
She falls in love with a mortal person, 

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Anchises, and two of them now produce 
Aeneas who has immortal blood but is kind 

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of a revenge against Aphrodite for having 
her weaken all those immortals by making 

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them fall in love with mortals. 
Well, the same thing's now happens to 

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her. 
So, Aeneas then is born of a goddess. 

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He has divine blood in him. 
That doesn't make him alone among the 

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ancient ancient mortal heroes, but it 
surely makes him pretty grand. 

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that background early Romans start to 
hang onto back to at least the third 

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century BCE. 
They start talking about Aeneas as being 

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a founder of Rome, a founding figure of 
this city. 

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There are also other well-known stories 
of, of Rome's past as 

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so you all will recognize the famous 
statue of Romulus and Remus from 

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Capitoline Hill in ancient Rome. 
Romulus and Remus were understood to be 

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founders of the city of Rome back in the 
8th century BCE. 

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that legend has a rich collection of, of 
tales around it. 

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The Romans believe that that's the case. 
They, they understand their city to come 

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from this pair of twins. 
There's a little bit of a problem with 

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this vector in their history though, 
because as you all will know, Rome is 

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founded when Romulus kills Remus. 
we've got brothers literally killing each 

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other, so Rome was founded on an act of 
fratricide. 

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It would be like people looking back to 
your own national consciousness and 

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national identity and talking about 
founding figures of the nation killing 

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each other and then the nation begins. 
that's a little bit of a complicated 

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history especially given Rome's recent 
past at the time Virgil's writing. 

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And so, that's not the one he really 
latches onto, 

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instead this figure Aeneas returns for 
him. 

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Then, there are names in the past Rome's 
that, that show up behind Rome. 

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a first settlement of Levinium shows up 
in the legends that surrounds Rome. 

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Also the city Alba Longa, an important 
ancient settlement that sends a colony 

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out to found Rome. 
we hear of Latium, an ancient 

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civilization. 
These are all terms that are kind of 

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reverberating around. 
and before Virgil didn't have quite 

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solidified authoritative narrative that 
strung them all together. 

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Well, Virgil does that. 
remember what we talked about with Hesiod 

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lining up all the different possibilities 
of divine relationships with one another 

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through genealogical chart, he makes 
sense out of this past history. 

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Well, Virgil's doing the same thing. 
Taking lots of different tales and 

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weaving them together with Aeneas now as 
the most important one. 

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Now, wherever it came from though, it was 
clear among those who were living at the 

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time that Rome was the undisputed power 
in the ancient Mediterranean. 

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Augustus sat as founder of a massive and 
massively successful empire. 

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Virgil's going to now try to take up this 
project. 

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Constructing a good past for what this 
empire is all about. 

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And that's, for him, going to mean a turn 
to antiquity a turn to bury himself 

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inside of this legend around Aeneus and 
look to a Trojan background to what it 

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means to be Roman. 
Now, what do the Romans get by having 

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Trojan-ness in their background? 
Well, they surely get a sense of 

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antiquity that's built into them. 
No question about that. 

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The Trojans are very old, they've been 
around for a long time. 

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this great past now gets to be the 
lineage of the city of Rome. 

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Now, historically, is it accurate to say 
that such a linkage exist? 

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That's probably not true, it's probably 
not the case. 

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The Romans thought it was even before 
Virgil, but it's probably not true that 

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we're going to find some biological 
linkage between ancient Trojans and the 

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Roman side. 
instead what we have is a an affiliation 

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a kind of chosen affiliation, that Virgil 
develops and works into this sense of 

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background of what what Greek-ness is, or 
what Roman-ness is going to be all about. 

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So, they get an anchor in the great past 
by linking to Romans. 

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They also get something else. 
They get a position that is not swallowed 

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up by the Greeks. The Romans don't want 
to claim that they come from the Greeks, 

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that's not palatable kind of linkage for 
them to make. 

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So, there's no legend that talks about 
biological background, some founding 

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figure in the Greek material that would 
lead up to them. 

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and instead interestingly, they chose 
their their background to lead back to 

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Greeks sworn enemies, these Trojans. And 
the Trojans are after all, somewhat 

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admirable, of course. They're, they're 
great people to, under to, to look at. 

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We learn about these great figures. 
Hector, and Mias, and all the others. 

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On the other hand, they're losers. 
Aren't they? 

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sorry, it's a harsh way to say that. 
[LAUGH] But, the Trojans don't win the 

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Trojan War. 
So, are the Romans now affiliating 

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themselves with a culture that is shown 
itself in history to be someone that is 

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not able to win a grand victory against 
the Greeks? 

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Well, not quite. 
Virgil's going to 

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talk about a story that, sure, talks 
about an early loss. 

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but Roman's position, 
Rome's position now, in the time of 

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Virgil's writings, undisputed. 
No question about them having any pesky 

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Greeks around to bother them anymore. 
the Romans had crushed them in the 

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century before Virgil. 
So, there's confidence that shows 

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militarily with respect to Greece. 
But there's an ongoing sense among the 

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Romans of a cultural anxiety with respect 
to Greek greatness. 

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A famous 
line from this a great Roman poet, 

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Horace, in one of his epistles. 
talks about, Graecia capta ferum victorem 

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cepit, 
which means, Greece after it was 

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captured, captured the ferocious victor. 
So, after the Romans clobber the Greeks 

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militarily, the Romans fall for lots of 
Greek culture. They get excited by it and 

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there's a lot of interest in Greekness 
from the Roman side of things. 

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Well, that cultural anxiety I think is 
getting worked out by making a connection 

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with a grand past that Homer talks about 
but affiliating with the other side, the 

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non-Greek side. And, in fact, sworn 
enemies of the Greeks this is perfectly 

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fine for the Romans and make, 
makes them, I think, feel perfectly 

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comfortable. 
the sense of Roman and Greek connection 

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could maybe be mapped onto a contemporary 
situation. 

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As an American I know, at least I observe 
among some of my countrymen that there's 

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a great admiration for things that happen 
in older cultures where we admire what 

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happens in European nations. 
We admire the, the history and background 

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that shows up in our friends across the 
pond. 

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those from England in particular. 
and we admire that but at the same time, 

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feel a bit culturally anxious about it. 
These people over there are from those 

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older cultures, they seem to be more 
sophisticated than we Americans are. 

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And, on occasion, there'll be some 
resentment that bubbles up from folks 

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that are just not quite ready to say, 
yes, they're culturally superior to us. 

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But there's a kind of chip on the 
shoulder that shows up sometimes. 

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in the same way I think Romans showed a 
little bit of that. 

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Now, neither of these, I think, has much 
basis in reality, this is just people's 

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fantasies and not so much something that 
a person could argue for. 

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but I just would notice that such a thing 
happens not only in contemporary America 

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but it's also going to happen in ancient 
Rome on occasion as well. 

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now the background that we're going to 
see, the historical background, there are 

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links to these families, Trojan families, 
that Roman families are trying to draw. 

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I told you from the third century BCE and 
forward, the Romans drew links to Aeneas 

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and talked about him as a founder of 
Rome. 

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That started a kind of cottage industry 
for Roman aristocrats to find Trojan 

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linkages for themselves. 
In that same way that well my people, 

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sometimes, contemporary Americans, will 
try to find coats of arms in their family 

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background or linkages to grand, usually 
European aristocrats of centuries past. 

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that same kind of impulse was showing in 
Rome to find and calibrate these 

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connections with this ancient Trojan 
blanket ancient Trojan past that they 

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found themselves linked to. 
Now, all of this is the stew, the 

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cultural stew, into which Virgil is 
entering when he tells a story. 

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A definitive story that, yes, indeed you 
Romans did come from those Trojans. 

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And, in fact, this figure of Aeneas is 
going to go from being one among many 

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Trojans to being a major Trojan. 
And not only that, he's going to be 

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founder of our whole national identity. 
You and me as classical Romans now are, 

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going to watch Virgil use Aeneas to 
produce a sense of who we are.