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Equal_Caregiver_4909 OP t1_j6m55hp wrote

Reply to comment by jcbmths62 in TIL That the character who first said the phrase "fortune favours the bold" - Turnus, in the Aeneid, spends the rest of the story suffering military defeats before he's killed and heads to the underworld, miserable, at the end of the last book. by Equal_Caregiver_4909

Huh, I wonder what was planned for later.

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rugbat t1_j6mdgfo wrote

Probably the rest of Roman history up to that point. Virgil was writing an epic origin story for the Roman people. It's like a Roman version of Exodus, giving the people an awesome and coherent origin, instead of the mundane and messy real one.

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Danhuangmao t1_j6mj1r3 wrote

Not sure about that. He was basing the work closely on The Odyssey and The Illiad, neither of which tells massive multi-generational tales (in fact, The Illiad doesn’t even cover the whole Trojan war - just the 9th year of it, of 10).

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Equal_Caregiver_4909 OP t1_j6mjsl8 wrote

It was also written for Augustus, who claimed to be a descendant of Aeneas, and so character flaws in Aeneas can be seen as veiled criticisms of the current leader.

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TheDolphinGod t1_j6nubny wrote

We have the general outline of the Roman myth of Aeneas from other sources. After the battle against Turnus, Aeneas goes on to found the city of Lavinium, the spiritual fatherland of the Roman people. Aeneas then lived there as King until his death, at which point Jupiter deified him under the name Indiges. His line would continue to rule the city of Lavinium and its surrounding lands, including Alba Longa, the birthplace of Romulus and Remus.

Virgil was really close to the end of the story, he just didn’t quite make it. The battle with Turnas was definitely the climax to the story of Aeneas, and the founding of Lavinium would’ve likely been the conclusion. For the story that Virgil was telling, it’s a very logical place to end his epic. It concretely places the house of Aeneas on the land of Latium, and connects his house to the Legacy of Rome.

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