In what way does the Aeneid fulfill its aim to provide the Romans with Essay

In what way does the Aeneid fulfill its aim to provide the Romans with a national epic - Essay Example It shall be argued that, far from being a strictly literary work, Aeneid was an integral part of Augustan project of rebuilding Roman national identity, with apparent focus going from Republican virtues to the notion of divine predestination of Romans to rule the world and to the idea of divine mission of Julian dynasty as heirs to Aeneas. In this work, I will use three main sources. The first one, Epic and empire: Politics and generic form from Virgil to Milton, is a book by Quint (1993) that examines the influences of epic poems on state ideologies. Focusing on Aeneid, in particular, Quint (1993) observes that it was used to enshrine the autocratic rule of Julio-Claudian emperors, starting from Caesar Augustus himself, and that the political character of Aeneid signified the final politicization of heroic epics that began with Alexander’s appropriation of image of Achilles (Quint, 1993, p. 8). The second source, Virgil's gaze: Nation and poetry in the Aeneid, authored by Ree d (2007), explores Aeneid from the standpoint of its character as a form of Roman foundational myth, itself appropriated from Hellenistic culture.