ROMAN LITERATURE
Discussants:
• DEO J. GALVEZ
• NADIA
DIRONGAWAN
• ELAISEL
DIGNOS
Presentation Outline:
1.1 Background of the Roman Literature
1.2 Characters and Roles
1.3 Morals & Values about story of Aeneid
1.4 Summary and critical analysis about the story of Aeneid
1.5 Conclusion of the Presentation
1.1 Background of the Roman Literature
• The history of Roman literature begins around the 3rd century BC. It reached its
"Golden Age" during the rule of Augustus and the early part of the Roman Empire.
• The Romans wrote a lot of poetry and history. They also wrote letters and made a lot of
formal speeches.
• Literature in Ancient Rome flourished during the Imperial period and several literary
writings, poetry, drama, historical texts, comedy, and philosophy. Its scale expanded
with the expansion of Rome into the Holy Roman Empire.
• Catullus was a pioneer poet during this period. His genre was limited to extreme
emotions, primarily love and hatred. However, it reflected the surrounding turmoil he
came from.
• The golden period produced great poets such as Virgil, Horace, and Ovid, who created
impacts in the Literature of Ancient Rome. Virgil depicted Roman country life and
embodied the Roman way of life in his writings.
1.2 Characters and Roles about the
story of Aeneid
The Author- Virgil
• He worked on the Aeneid during the
last ten years of his life
• Augustus Caesar ordered the
publication of Aeneid.
Aeneas1.2 Characters and Roles about the story of
Venus
Aeneid
• The protagonist • Goddess of love
• A survivor of the siege of Troy • Mother of Aeneas
• A fearsome warrior
Anchises
Creusa • Aeneas’s father
• Aeneas’s wife at Troy, and the • A symbol of Aeneas’s Trojan heritage
mother of Ascanius
Ascanius (Lulus) Dido
• Aeneas’s young son by his first • The queen of Carthage
wife • Lover of Aeneas
Turnus Juturna
• The ruler of the Rutulians in Italy • Turnus’s sister
• Aeneas’s major antagonist • drives Turnus all over the field,
• A capable soldier who values his honor over keeping him safe from an attack by
his life Aeneas
Latinus
• King of the Latins
• Encourages Aeneas’s to become a suitor of
Lavinia
• Respects the gods and fate
Amata Lavinia
• Queen of Laurentum • Latinus’s daughter
• Wife of Latinus • Destined to marry the Trojan hero ( Aeneas)
• Opposes the marriage of Lavinia to Aeneas
Evander Pallas
• King of Pallanteum • Son of king Evander
• Sworn enemy of the Latins • Young warrior
Drancës Neptune
• has an old grudge against Turnus • God of the sea
• A Latin leader who desires an end to the Trojan-Latin • An ally of Venus and Aeneas
struggle
Camilla Mercury
• The messenger god
• Leader of the Volscians
• works on Jupiter's behalf to give messages to Aeneas
• The only mortal female character in the epic about his own destiny
Achates Aeolus
• God of the winds
• A Trojan and a personal friend of Aeneas
• Enlisted to aid Juno in creating bad weather for the
Trojans
Juno
Cupid
• Trojans because of the Trojan Paris's judgment
against her in a beauty contest. • A son of Venus
• God of erotic desire
Jupiter
• the king of the gods Allecto
• Juno's husband • One of the furies or deities who avenge sins
• the "fixer" and the "mediator"
Vulcan Agamemnon
• the god of fire and forging • The leader of the Greek army at Troy
• Husband of Venus • the king of Argos
Tiberinus
Priam
• The river god associated with the Tiber River
• The king of Troy.
• helps Aeneas by telling him how to find help from
a mortal, King Evander
Pyrrhus
Hector
• The son of Achilles
• The greatest of the Trojan warriors
• the brutal murderer of Priam and Priam’s sons.
• killed at Troy
• The husband of Andromache
Pyrrhus
Paris
• The Trojan prince • The son of Achilles
• Brother of Hector • the brutal murderer of Priam and Priam’s sons.
• The handsomest of men
Helen
Minerva
• The most beautiful of mortal women • The goddess who protects the Greeks
during the Trojan War
• wife of Menelaus
1.3 Summary and Critical analysis about the story of Aeneid
• The start of a journey
After the fall of Troy, Aeneas leads the remaining Trojans as they sail
near Sicily on their quest to reach Latium, an Italian region where their
descendants are fated to one day found the city of Rome.
• A city called Carthage
Trojans land at a North African city called Carthage.
• The Underworld
With his strongest followers, he continues to Cumae, near Naples,
where Sibyl, an oracle, guides him to the Underworld.
• The Underworld
With his strongest followers, he continues to Cumae, near Naples,
where Sibyl, an oracle, guides him to the Underworld.
• Trojan’s in Latium
The Trojans continue to Latium, where they meet the king of the Latin
people, Latinus, who's learned from signs that his daughter Lavinia will
marry a foreigner, - Aeneas
• The founding of the Roman empire
As Turnus is on his knees, begging for his life, the epic ends with Aeneas
initially tempted to obey Turnus' pleas to spare his life, but then killing
him in rage when he sees that Turnus is wearing his friend Pallas' belt
over his shoulder as a trophy.
1.4 Morals and values about the story of Aeneid
1. Anger and rage compel men into action
“Rage supplies arms.”
2. Leverage your own courage to shoot yourself to the stars!
“Blessings on your young courage, boy; that’s the way to the stars.”
3. You have endured (still) greater dangers
“O friends and companions, have we not known hard[er] hours before this? My men, who
have endured still greater dangers, God will grant us an end to these [ills] as well.”
“Endure, my heart; a worse thing even than this didst thou once endure on that day when
the Cyclops, unrestrained in daring, devoured my mighty comrades; but thou didst endure
until craft got thee forth from the cave where thou thoughtest to die.”
4. Advance boldly against misfortune!
“Yield not to misfortunes, but advance all the more boldly against them.”
5. A greater task awaits you in life!
“A greater history opens before my eyes. A greater task awaits me.”
