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Aeneid's Virgil not pro-Augustus?


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I'm not saying the actual epic is anti-Augustus, but in AP Latin today, my teacher brought up a really good point about Virgil. From a later source, it states that Virgil's family lost their estate,farms, and wealth due to the battle of Phillipi since the Virgil's family was actually on the Republican side against Antony/Octavian. So my teacher teacher, while cautious about using late sources, pointed out that very likely Virgil did not favor Augustus but was forced to write the Aeneid since Maecenas, Augustus cultural advisor and great patron of my Roman scholars, approached Virgil with a good amount leverage since Maecenas was a good patron.

 

I just wanted to but that out there.

 

By the way, if anyone has finished the Aenid, did you ever realized the book was never finished?

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...very likely Virgil did not favor Augustus but was forced to write the Aeneid ... did you ever realized the book was never finished?

Here comes Book XII, v. 945-952:

 

ille, oculis postquam saeui monumenta doloris

exuuiasque hausit, furiis accensus et ira

terribilis: 'tune hinc spoliis indute meorum

eripiare mihi? Pallas te hoc uulnere, Pallas

immolat et poenam scelerato ex sanguine sumit.'

hoc dicens ferrum aduerso sub pectore condit

feruidus; ast illi soluuntur frigore membra

uitaque cum gemitu fugit indignata sub umbras.

 

The other, soon as his eyes drank in the trophy, that memorial of cruel grief, fired with fury and terrible in his wrath: "Art thou, thou clad in my beloved one's spoils, to be snatched hence from my hands? 'Tis Pallas, Pallas who with this stroke sacrifices thee, and takes atonement of thy guilty blood!" So saying, full in his breast he buries the sword with fiery zeal. But the other's limbs grew slack and chill, and with a moan life passed indignant to the Shadows below

 

"On the so-called "Abrupt Ending" of the Aeneid" by Takayuki Yamasawa seems a nice essay to me: briefly, he concluded: "Thus, the end of the Aeneid is neither 'violent' nor 'astonishing.' That is only a superficial impression and we might call it misdirected to try to detect Virgil's anti-Roman sentiments in these aspects of the poem."

 

Anyway, several fictional endings had been written for the Aeneid. Here is the notorious case of the "Supplement to the Twelfth Book of the Aeneid" by Maffeo Vegio.

 

I hope this may be useful.

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It could have been as well that since Virgil was penniless due to the Battle of Phillipi, he saw this as a way to get back some of the money he lost. Remember, he was not a slave. He was actually paid to do this. As was Ovid, and we all remember what happened to him. BANISHMENT! Not because he didn't write, but because he did write. Plus, was Virgil's family name on Anthony's list or Octavius?

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