Lavinia

Content Warning: This section discusses death by suicide.

The Aeneid is an epic poem by Publius Vergilius Maro (70 BCE-19 BCE), better known as Virgil (or, as spelled in Lavinia, Vergil). He was a Roman poet, and the Aeneid, which he composed during the final decade of his life, is widely considered his most famous and most accomplished work. The Aeneid is 9,896 lines long and was originally written in Latin, in dactylic hexameter. The purpose of the Aeneid was to create a mythical link between the Roman civilization and the slightly earlier Greek civilization. During Virgil’s lifetime, such nation-building was important for Roman leaders, particularly Augustus (also known as Octavian), who was in power during most of the time that Virgil was composing the Aeneid. Linking Roman history with Greek history allowed the ancient Romans to reify their power and legitimize their control over a large empire.

The Aeneid tells the story of Aeneas, a Trojan warrior who fought in the decade-long war between the Greeks and the Trojans. The war occurred when Paris, a Trojan prince, kidnapped Helen of Sparta and took her to Troy. Helen’s husband, Menelaus, gathered a huge Greek fleet to retrieve her. The Greeks finally breached the walls of Troy, burning it and forcing survivors to flee. Aeneas’s wife, Creusa, died in the onslaught, but he escaped with his father, Anchises, and his son, Ascanius. Aeneas and his men then tried to find a new homeland in accordance with a prophecy. They stopped first in Sicily, where Anchises died. When Aeneas and Ascanius left Sicily, their ships were blown off course and they arrive in Carthage, in northern Africa. There, Aeneas fell in love with Dido, the queen of Carthage, but he realized that his destiny was to create a new city elsewhere. He left, and Dido, devastated, died by suicide.

Aeneas’s travels continued. He visited the underworld for more advice on his journey. He and his people spent more time in Sicily before finally arriving on the Italian mainland. Aeneas came in peace and made terms with King Latinus. Lavinia, Latinus’s daughter, was promised to Aeneas, who never speaks in the poem. Before they could marry, the peace was ruptured when Ascanius shot a deer. However, Aeneas successfully ended the brief war by killing Turnus, the leader of the Latin forces. The Aeneid ends abruptly at this point. It’s unclear whether Virgil wanted to write more but was unable to do so, or whether he wrote the ending he intended. Before dying, Virgil asked that his work be burned; this wish wasn’t honored.