a—
Characters
1—
Generic Characteristics
Ancient literary theory distinguished very sharply between the characterization of
types and the characterization of individuals. In the Poetics , Aristotle is most inter-
ested in the characterization of individuals, but he does occasionally allude to the
characterization of types; he deals with the latter more fully in the Rhetoric . It is
significant that Horace's Ars Poetica lays particular emphasis on this kind (112-18;
156-78), and passes very quickly over the other, in a way that shows that he believes
that in elevated poetry a mere handful of conspicuous features will provide suffi-
cient characterization of individuals (119-27). This corresponds exactly with the
practice of the post-classical phases of ancient poetry. As early as Aristotle, we find
the opinion that 'more recent' tragedy lacks 
[moral character] (Poetics 1450b
25): it had been pushed into the background by 
[emotion]. In Hellenistic
poetry, subtler touches of individual characterization are restricted almost entirely to
comedy and the less elevated genres (where, it is true, with a few brilliant exceptions,
it became fossilized into 'typical' characterization). Serious poetry was considered
to have other aims; it employed characterization, if at all, only in broad outlines or in
a general way. Callimachus' Acontius and Cydippe, as the recently discovered
papyrus shows, were simply a boy and a girl, a neutrally-coloured ground from
which the splendid blossoms of passionate love, with all their rich hues, can spring.
Apollonius' Jason is a stereotyped heroic youth – in so far as a man of Apollonius'
calibre is capable of conceiving one; his Medea is merely the typical maiden who is
overpowered by the strength of Eros; the only way in which a woman like her could
plausibly have become a Medea ferox [fierce Medea] would have been by means of
266 more individual characterization. Theocritus' Amycus is the stupid, clumsy, foreign
athlete, the opposite of the Hellene Polydeuces, in whom mind and body are equally
well developed.
Virgil's roots were in Hellenistic poetry; but he was too enthusiastic and percep-
tive a reader of Homer and Attic tragedy not to attempt, at least from time to time, to
rise above the level of the Alexandrians.
The main aspects of characterization according to 
[types] are, in the first
place, the differences between the stages of human life, and between male and
female; secondly, the differences that are characteristic of various nations and social
classes, though this last category is irrelevant to the heroic world of Virgil's epic.[1]
We have already mentioned (p. 128) the young Ascanius in connection with the
lusus Troiae [Troy Game]. In the character of Ascanius, Virgil was depicting a
typical young member of the nobility, noble by birth and noble by nature, although,
since he is a heroic youth, he is mature enough to take part in the hunt and in battle
at an earlier age than youths of today. In his case, he had had no mother to care for
him during the long years of his childhoood; he had been taken along on a dan-
gerous voyage that had wandered here, there and everywhere. It is understandable
that ante annos animumque gerit curamque virilem (9.311) [he bore beyond his
years the mind and responsibilities of a man]. But Virgil has nevertheless – and this
is a delicate touch – made use of the fact that Ascanius is no more than a child, by
attributing to him the exclamation heus etiam mensas consumimus [Hullo, we are
even munching our tables!] on the occasion of the prodigium of the tables (7.116), a
piece of schoolboy humour ( nec plura adludens [jokingly; that was all he said])
which Aeneas is immediately able to recognize as a fortuitous omen.[2] Furthermore, I
observe that Ascanius' first action in battle, the bow-shot with which he kills Nu-
manus (9.590ff.), is also the last action of his that we hear of; it is as if he grows
before our very eyes from childhood to young adulthood.
Next to Ascanius in years comes Euryalus;[3] he is already old enough to take part
267 in the young men's foot-race – although childish tears roll down his cheeks when he
realizes that he is not going to win the prize (5.343); and he is already old enough to
take part in the dangers of battle – but he does not yet possess the caution and
experience of a mature warrior; and it is this that leads to his death. Then come the
young heroes Lausus and Pallas, as brave as Euryalus, except that Euryalus' bravery
is characterized as mere hunger for action and honour, whereas that of Pallas is
characterized as resolute and steadfast courage,[4] and that of Lausus, which is shown
in one scene only, the scene in which he meets his death, as self-sacrifice through
pietas ; but the difference here lies in the situation rather than the characterization;
these three young men – and Nisus may be added as a fourth – are presented on the
whole as ideal types of youthful manliness, full of hope; so that it is fitting that, for
the sake of a great cause, they should throw themselves into dangers for which, in
the eyes of their more cautious elders, they are still too young.[5]
The mature men, Turnus, Aeneas, Mezentius, are not given the typical attributes
of men of their age; more particular traits are mentioned.[6]
Typical old men include Ilioneus, Nautes (5.704), Evander and, above all, An-
chises; they speak and act calmly, thoughtfully, dispassionately; they give guidance
to the younger men and offer advice from the rich store of their experience, and they
enjoy talking about the past.[7] Some of them have been granted the privilege of
special insight into the will of the gods and the decrees of fate: Nautes has been
given this power by Pallas Athene (5.704); Anchises interprets the omen when the
Trojans first land in Italy (3.539); he appears as prophet at 7.123, a fragment that
268 survives from an earlier draft. The portrayal of Latinus is also rich in generic
characteristics: but Virgil adds individual touches as well.
As for the women, their generic characteristic is, above all, that they are more
easily excited; in their case, every emotion is much more likely to develop into
passion, and this passion destroys their psychological balance and drives them mad
– the Trojan women in Book 5, Dido, Amata represent the various stages of mad-
ness; and as soon as one woman is seized by madness of this kind, it spreads like an
infection (7.392): sorrow becomes despair, and despair brings death, or turns life
into a cruel torment (e.g. Euryalus' mother 9.473ff.; Juturna at 12.879). All these
were traits which Hellenistic poets were particularly fond of stressing when they
portrayed the nature of women, but they were very common in Roman thought too.[8]
Varium et mutabile semper femina [women were ever things of many changing
moods], Mercury tells Aeneas in a dream (4.569): the Trojan women set fire to the
ships in their despair and fury, but as soon as they have caught sight of the men piget
incepti lucisque (5.678) [they were disgusted at what they had done and ashamed to
be seen in the light of day]; the women of Laurentum ally themselves with Amata
(7.392ff.) to avenge the violation of her rights as a mother, and embrace the cause of
Turnus, and in so doing they are largely responsible for the outbreak of war; but
after the first defeat they curse the cruel war and Turnus' marriage-plans: let him
fight by himself, man against man, to win the kingdom that he claims (11.215). Yet
Amata remains a loyal supporter of Turnus; in taking his side she is setting her own
life at risk. Her behaviour is not motivated by anything special in her character, but
– as Virgil portrays it – it is typical of the way that any woman in her position would
react, except of course that not every woman is driven to extremes by an Allecto.[9]
269 She has selected Turnus, that handsome, noble, splendid young hero, who is more-
over one of her kin, to be her son-in-law; when things turn out differently and her
daughter is to be handed over to a homeless, penniless foreigner, she resists ex-
tremely violently, as might be expected; she is an easy prey for Allecto. First she
pours out her grievances and entreaties to the king, accuses the stranger of being a
'treacherous pirate', and uses bold subterfuges in an attempt to turn the oracle of
Faunus to her own advantage; and all this is solito matrum de more (7.359) [as a
mother well might speak]. When Latinus remains unmoved she becomes a raging
Bacchant; and disaster ensues.
Camilla, the maiden on horseback, belongs to a world outside the normal sphere
of women and is not to be measured by the same yardstick as the others. But in order
to make her perhaps not totally implausible, Virgil has given her one typical fem-
inine characteristic: the gleaming accoutrements of the Phrygian priest catch her
eye, f e m i n e o praedae et spoliorum amore (11.782) [in a woman 's hot passion for
plundering and spoils], she throws all caution to the winds in her pursuit, and falls
victim to her own passionate greed.
All these rather unpleasing characteristics are offset by only one praiseworthy
quality: a woman's unswerving love for her own family. This is of course an
emotion that is also felt by honourable men, but whereas in their case it is regarded
as the fulfilment of a duty and acknowledged as such, it is thought to be just a
woman's nature, and therefore not to deserve any special praise; for a man it is one
obligation among many, for a woman it is her whole existence.[10] A woman's love
for her family can take various forms. Love for her children: Venus is the prime
example, tireless in her concern for Aeneas, as Thetis is for Achilles in the Iliad , but
more passionate and more tender; Euryalus' mother too, who forgets all troubles and
cares in working for her son, and who, when she loses him, no longer has anything
to live for; Andromache who loves in Ascanius the resemblance to her own
Astyanax (3.486) and hopes that Ascanius yearns for his lost mother (341), because
270 she feels that if the same fate had befallen her, she would have survived in the
memory of her Astyanax; Creusa, whose last words to her husband are nati serva
communis amorem (2.789) [guard the love of the son whom we share]. Love be-
tween brothers and sisters: Anna, Dido's unanima soror (4.8) [the sister whose heart
was one with hers], whose first thought when she hears of the death of the sister
'whom I love more than life itself' (4.31) is regret that Dido had not thought her
worthy to share her fate; Juturna, whose immortality becomes a torture to her when
her brother dies. Love between husband and wife: Dido, whose greatest pride lay in
her fidelity to her dead husband, becomes unfaithful when she is fatally infatuated
with Aeneas; she hears the voice of the dead Sychaeus calling her, and resolves to
die, so as to rejoin the husband of her youth in the underworld, and to be united in
love with him again, as in days gone by; and, again, Andromache, coniunx Hecto -
rea[11] [the wife of Hector] even when forced to be wife to another (3.488), who utters
the incomparable Hector ubi est? ['Where is Hector?'] when she thinks that she sees
the shade of Aeneas (312). Finally, when their ancestral home, their fathers, hus-
bands and brothers are in extreme danger, then heroic courage wells up in the hearts
of the women also, and verus amor patriae (11.475, 891) [true love of their home-
land] drives them on to the walls to meet the enemy attack.
In characterizing whole nations, Virgil most often restricts himself to a handful of
outstanding traits which were common currency to his contemporaries and him-
self.[12] Sinon is the very type of the deceitful, resourceful, wily Greek.[13] Venus fears
danger for Aeneas from the Tyrii bilingues (1.661) [deceitful Tyrians]: that is the
conventional Roman view of the Carthaginians, although it is hardly borne out by
the behaviour of Dido and her people. Again, the Etruscans are described by their
own king Tarchon just as the Romans usually imagined them: bent on pleasure,
271 dancing and feasting at lavish sacrifices, hic amor , hoc studium (11.736) [this is
their passion, their interest]; this may be historically justified to some extent, but
there is nothing about Virgil's Etruscans that seems to justify these criticisms;
perhaps the point of this depiction is to offer an explanation of the maiden Camilla's
military successes as being due to the inefficiency of her enemy, which consisted
mostly of Etruscans? Another traditional attribute, the terrible cruelty of Etruscan
pirates, is used to characterize Mezentius 8.485 (see above p. 168). The native
inhabitants of Italy are characterized by Numanus, himself an Italian, as being like
the popular image of the ancient Sabines and so forth (8.603); Numanus also,
surprisingly, characterizes the Trojans as Phrygians, worshippers of Cybele, for this
was how they were best known to the Romans (9.614ff.), and the Numidian Iarbas
has also imagined Aeneas in this way (4.215); of course this description is totally
inapplicable to Virgil's Trojans. All Ligurians are liars:[14] Camilla too has this in
mind when she shouts to the Ligurian opponent who has tried a cowardly trick on
her: nequiquam patrias temptasti lubricus artis nec fraus te incolumem fallaci per -
feret Auno (11.716) ['You were slippery! But it has done you no good to try your
native tricks, for your cunning will never bring you safe home to Aunus your father,
who is a cheat like yourself'].
2—
Aeneas
Thus in the case of the Greeks and the Ligurians, Virgil took a single character and
portrayed him as typical of his countrymen. In the case of Aeneas, he did essentially
the same, although with much richer detail, representing him as the typical Roman
as conceived by the Romans themselves – or, more precisely, by the Romans of the
Augustan age and of the Stoic persuasion. This type is well-known in its main
outlines; and to portray him in full detail and to make him comprehensible as a
product of the outlook of the Augustan age would be an important and attractive
undertaking, but would be appropriate to a history of Roman morality, not to an
account of Virgil's artistic technique. Furthermore, it is impossible to see the signi-
ficance of this typical Roman in the context of the work as a whole until we come to
consider Virgil's treatment of the supernatural (below, 239f.), since the most essen-
272 tial aspect of Aeneas' character lies in his relationship to destiny and the gods. At
this point we must concern ourselves with a different but equally important ques-
tion. It is clear that the character of Aeneas varies considerably from one part of the
poem to another. He has so often been held up as an example of the ideal Roman
whom the younger generation should try to emulate; and so, precisely because he is
such a paragon, he has become an abstract concept without flesh and blood. I must
confess that he does not strike me as much of a paragon in the first half of the
poem,[15] and I believe that Virgil would have agreed with me. Certainly, the Aeneas
who rescues the Penates, his father, and his son, who shows in the night battle in
Book 2 that he does not fear death, may be regarded as courageous and devoted to
his family; but that is not everything. A man who has so little presence of mind
when danger breaks out that he rushes blindly into the fighting, driven by furor
[frenzy] and ira [anger] (2.316), without stopping to make sure that his family is
safe; who is so utterly thoughtless during the flight that he even fails to notice that
his wife is no longer with him until all the others are gathered at the meeting-place;
who – let us not forget his encounter with Venus in Book 1 – breaks out in loud
lamentation about his sad lot, and does not have the courage to trust the comforting
assurances of his divine mother until he is convinced by the evidence of his own
eyes; who allows himself to become so ensnared by the delights of love that he quite
forgets his high destiny, and has to be reminded of it by the stern rebukes of Jupiter;
who, finally, allows himself to become so discouraged by the burning of the ships in
Sicily that, even though Jupiter has obviously answered his prayer, his thoughts
revert to the idea of staying there with his good friend Acestes in peace and quiet,
fatorum oblitus [forgetful of his destiny], and he has to be reminded yet again by the
aged Nautes (5.700ff.) where his supreme duty lies; is a man like that, we ask
273 ourselves, really an ideal Roman, a shining example for the younger generation? Did
Virgil really have no understanding of what a hero is made of? And did he really
believe that the image of his hero would remain untarnished if he kept breaking the
commandment which, as he himself consciously acknowledged, ought to have over-
ridden all others – the command to follow the will of the gods with steadfast
devotion? It is true that each time Aeneas is over-hasty, or displays weakness, Virgil
carefully motivates it from the situation; but a different character would have re-
acted differently to such situations. And if Virgil was unaware of how seriously his
hero fell short of the ideal which Virgil himself had outlined, then how is it that his
hero approaches more and more closely to this ideal as the story unfolds, so that by
the last books hero and ideal are one and the same? We might imagine that this
results from the development of the story, and to some extent this may be true; but
the development of the story is insufficient to explain why, for example, Aeneas'
reactions to the injustice of Fate in Book 5 are so very different from his reactions in
Book 12. I cannot persuade myself that one of the greatest artistic ideas of the work
crept into it by mere chance, without Virgil's knowledge or intention; I regard the
change in the hero as Virgil's deliberate and considered design. In that case, we
should not regard Aeneas as an ideal hero, perfect from the very beginning, but as a
man who learns how to become a hero in the school of fate.[16]
During the sack of Troy, Aeneas displays the best side of his character, as far as
patriotism, devotion and courage are concerned; but not, as we have just seen, from
the point of view of judgement and presence of mind; he himself often says that he
has lost his wits when he most needed them; Venus had to restrain him from a
desperate course which would have brought about his own death and with it the
destruction of his people. During the flight, it is Anchises who takes command and
gives the directions which Aeneas is happy to obey, subordinating himself to the
will of his father, which in turn is subject to the will of the gods. We cannot help
274 feeling that the episode at Carthage would never have occurred had Anchises still
been alive. After Anchises' death Aeneas is the leader of the refugees; after this
severe blow, which happens so suddenly, he is fully aware of his obligations, and
cares for his people; not only does he look after their physical welfare, but he also
consoles them and keeps up their morale. He commends them, just as Anchises
would have done, to the will and command of fate (1.205); God will bring their
suffering to an end. But – and this touch is very characteristic indeed of Virgil – in
the depths of his own heart he does not possess this faith in the gods which he is
trying to instil into his people: curis ingentibus aeger s p e m v u l t u s i m u l a t
(208) [he concealed his sorrow deep within him and his face looked confident and
cheerful ]. This becomes quite clear in the conversation with Venus that follows:
instead of trusting in fate and in divine protection, he complains that he, pius Aeneas
[Aeneas the true], who has never failed to obey the commands laid upon him by
fate, has now been cast into this miserable situation – nec plura querentem passa
Venus (385) [but Venus would not listen to more complaints from him]. He hardly
takes any notice of the comfort which she offers him – his faith is really not very
strong; it is not until he sees the pictures on the temple, with their air of compassion,
that 'his fears are allayed, and he dares to hope for life and to feel some confidence
in spite of his distress' (451). Dido receives him; love ensnares him; he is in extreme
danger of 'lying back' fatisque datas non respicit urbis [and taking no thought for
those other cities which are his by destiny], when Jupiter's command abruptly
rouses him from his life of ease and recalls him to his duty (460ff.); heu regni
rerumque oblite tuarum (4.267) ['For shame! you forget your destiny and that other
kingdom which is to be yours'] exclaims Mercury, rebuking him; and this time, on
Jupiter's orders, he appeals, not to Aeneas' desire to achieve fame and glory, but to
his duty as a father to Ascanius – his speech could hardly be more severe. But at
least his rebuke has results: Aeneas suppresses his personal feelings and his heart's
desire, remains deaf to all entreaties and lamentations, and guiltily abandons the
275 woman he loves, driving her to her death by his faithlessness.[17] We might expect
that by now it would be impossible for Aeneas to neglect the fulfilment of the task
for which he has made such a great sacrifice; but he has still not achieved the
unwavering trust in fate and the gods that befits a man chosen by the gods. The
prayer in which he appeals to Jupiter when his ships are on fire does not display an
unswerving faith (5.691); and even though Jupiter responds to it, Aeneas gives way
to faint-hearted doubt: the aged Nautes has to assume Anchises' rôle and offer him
advice and – this is another characteristic touch – in doing so, he uses exactly the
same words of comfort and encouragement as those that Aeneas had previously used
to address his companions: quo fata trahunt retrahuntque sequamur ; quidquid erit ,
superanda omnis fortuna ferendo est (709) [we should accept the lead which destiny
offers us, whether to go forward or no, and choose our way accordingly. Whatever is
to befall, it is always our own power of endurance which must give us control over
our future]. This advice makes a deep impression on Aeneas ( incensus dictis sen -
ioris amici [719] [the advice from his older friend set his thoughts on fire]), though
it fails to give him total confidence; he only achieves that after Anchises' ghost has
appeared, and after the events that follow: the poet wished to mark a turning point in
this scene:[18] indeed, a turning point in Aeneas' destiny: Anchises proclaims to his
son that Jupiter caelo tandem miseratus ab alto est [from high heaven has had
compassion on you at last] and tandem [at last], which refers back to the vocative
nate Iliacis exercite fatis [son, disciplined by the heavy burden of Troy's destiny]
shows that this does not merely apply to the extinguishing of the fire aboard the
ships but must refer to his destiny as a whole. Anchises then endorses Nautes'
advice, and adds that Aeneas is to seek him out in the Underworld: tum genus omne
tuum et quae dentur moenia disces [you shall learn then all your future descendants
and what manner of walled city is granted to you]. This has an immediate effect on
Aeneas: all at once he appears confident and assured: extemplo socios primumque
arcessit Acesten et Iovis imperium et cari praecepta parentis edocet et quae nunc
animo sententia constet [then, immediately, he summoned his comrades, Acestes
first. He expounded to them Jupiter's command, his dear father's instructions, and
the decision which he had reached in his own mind]. However, what shows more
than anything else that Aeneas has undergone a spiritual transformation and gained a
new strength of character, is his speech after the prophecy of the Sibyl. She has
prophesied that he must endure still greater sufferings than those that he has already
undergone, but instead of complaining and fainting he says with pride non ulla
laborum , o virgo , nova mi facies inopinave surgit ; omnia praecepi atque animo
mecum ante peregi (6.103) ['Maid, no aspect of tribulation which is new to me or
unforeseen can rise before me, for I have traced my way through all that may
happen in the anticipation of my inward thought']. The Stoic Seneca thought that
276 this summed up the attitude of the wise man when threatened by the onslaughts of
fate (Epist . 76.33).[19] The procession of heroes in Book 6, however, is intended to
strengthen this mood – indeed, this is its main function in the general scheme of the
work as a whole: Anchises says that he has long desired to show his son the future of
his family, quo magis Italia mecum laetere reperta (718) [that you might rejoice
with me the more in having found Italy]; he wants to tell him of the fame of his
descendants (757), and when he has reached Augustus, the most famous of them all,
he utters the words which can only be understood in terms of what we may call the
protreptic purpose of the whole passage, and which at the same time, when rightly
understood, pay a more profound homage to Augustus than could be conveyed by
any other method of praise (806):
et d u b i t a m u s adhuc virtutem extendere factis ,
aut metus Ausonia prohibet consistere terra?
[can we now hesitate to assert our valour by our deeds? Can any fear now prevent us
from taking our stand on Italy's soil?].
In the dangers that follow, Aeneas must show that he can convert his newly-won
confidence into action. This does not mean that he recklessly rushes towards his
goal, cheerfully trusting in the gods to preserve him from every danger, Virgil holds
back his climax until the very end. When threatened by war, we see Aeneas, not
plunged into doubt and despair, but worried and thoughtful,[20] as befits a leader, and
when the embassy to Evander has not achieved the result that Aeneas had hoped for,
and a new uncertainty has arisen, Aeneas sinks again into deep thought. But there
are great differences between this scene and similar situations earlier in the poem:
first, Aeneas no longer needs any human advice and encouragement (as he had done
from Nautes in Book 5), and secondly, he accepts with joy and absolute confidence
both the message that he receives from Tiberinus in a dream, and the sign that Venus
gives him in the heavens. We have only to compare his words at 8.532ff. with his
reaction to the appearance of Venus in human form in Book 1. The words with
277 which he introduces himself to Evander (8.131) are also full of his newly-found
confidence: mea me virtus et sancta oracula divum . . . coniunxere tibi et fatis egere
volentem [my own valour and holy oracles from gods, . . . have joined me to you and
brought me here in willing obedience to my destiny].
It is clear that he has now reached the point where he is being led by his fate
instead of being dragged along by it. But it is not until the battle itself that the hero
shows that he has achieved a height of heroism from which he will not descend
again. In the story, this is shown by the way that divine intervention and support
retreat into the background: Jupiter knows that he can leave Aeneas to his own
resources, to his animus ferox patiensque pericli (10.610) [his own proud spirit,
dauntless in peril]. In his new mood he can still feel deep sorrow at the death of
Pallas, but this does not deflect him from his duty for one moment (11.96); he goes
forth to his duel with Turnus, which he believes he has succeeded in arranging at
last, with total confidence in the fates, and instils the same confidence into his men
(12.110); and when the agreement is broken through treachery and he himself is
wounded and has to keep away from the battle-field, and the enemy has gained the
upper hand, he does not waver for a moment: he gives orders that the arrow is to be
cut out of his wound with a sword, so that he may return to the fight (389). As he
does so, he says farewell to Ascanius, in words which display an unsullied peaceful-
ness of spirit, such as befits the wise man: he renounces the favours of fortune, he is
conscious of his own worth, and he has no doubt whatever that he will succeed in
the end; hence he can present himself as an exemplum to his son.[21]
If we ask what gave Virgil the idea of portraying the development of a character
in this way, it will not be of much use to look among the poets for precedents. Not
that development of character was totally unknown in ancient poetry; what other
278 term can one use to describe the mental processes which the heroines and the
audience experience in Euripides' Medea and Hecuba , to say nothing of the greater
changes in character found in comedy (and perhaps their Roman adapters are guilty
of making them even greater)?[22] But in drama we are presented with the develop-
ment of individual characters, and in the case of tragedy it is quite clear that the
poet's problem was to make a specific and exceptional deed credible. Virgil's
problem is different. He did not envisage his task as one of analysing a particular
psychological case, and his aim was not to characterize Aeneas as an individual by
describing every slight deviation from the straight and narrow, so as to differentiate
him from other heroic figures in myth; for it cannot possibly have been part of his
plan to depict the man chosen by Providence to achieve great things as a fundamen-
tally despondent and weak character. Rather, just as Aeneas the fully developed
hero is a model of the Stoic 'wise man', so Aeneas the developing hero is a perfect
example of what the Stoics termed the 
the man who makes progress in
wisdom and virtue.[23] Even the man chosen by the gods does not attain the highest
level of morality in a single stride. Total control of the emotions, and the ability to
remain as steadfast as a rock before the capricious onslaughts of fortune, is some-
279 thing that is achieved as the result of a grim struggle, a struggle in which a man will
of course sometimes relapse into his former condition of weakness and 'foolish-
ness', and one which none may win without the help of the gods.[24] The
philosophical doctrines concerning the divinity of the world and of the human soul,
and concerning the true goal 
of life and the means of achieving it, had
prepared the ground for a moral regeneration; the clear, unshakeable insight into the
nature of things which is revealed to Aeneas in the Underworld is the result of these
doctrines. This insight is something that must be preserved throughout all the
troubles of life: that is why even Aeneas does not have his crown offered to him on a
plate by Fortune, but has to prove himself worthy of it by winning it from his
enemies in a fair and square battle.[25]
That Virgil has taken the risk of using his portrait of Aeneas to embody the
typical fate of a human soul as it struggles towards its goal – just as his portrayal of
Jupiter embodies the rule of divine providence as taught by the Stoics – is certainly a
matter of great importance; but it must be clear by now that we cannot speak of
individual personal characterization in this context. And what is true of Aeneas is
just as true of the other characters in the work. Not a single person is depicted with a
unique set of characteristics as a man who once walked on this earth, once and once
only; nor is any of them drawn from real life. On the contrary, Virgil depicts
character by starting from an ideal, and one person is distinguished from another by
280 the degree to which he has progressed towards this ideal; he is characterized not by
the qualities which he possesses, but by those which he lacks.
3—
Individuals and the Ideal
We have already discussed Dido as the ideal of the heroic queen: she would have
attained perfection if she had not succumbed in the face of an irresistible temptation.
Camilla represents the ideal of the warrior-maiden: there is only one respect in
which she pays the price for her femininity, and it leads to her death. Latinus
represents the ideal king: pious, considerate, generous, just and mild of heart; he
lacks only one quality, constantia [steadfastness]. He is an old man who has reigned
for many years peacefully over a peaceful nation; he is already nearing the grave
when he is thrust suddenly into a situation where he has to uphold what he perceives
to be right against the onslaught of all his entourage, all his family, and all his
subjects – and that is when his strength deserts him. Priam is the exact opposite: he
has a lifetime of warfare behind him, he remains a warrior right up to the very last
moment, and when his son is killed before his eyes, he forgets that he is weak and
old, and feebly flings his spear at the enemy. Then there is Turnus, the ideal of
strong, decisive manhood in every respect – except, as we have seen above,[26] that he
is consili expers , lacking in commonsense and moderation. Mezentius, endowed
with all the qualities that befit the splendour of a hero, falls short of the ideal only in
that he shows neither respect for the gods, nor that humanitas [sense of humanity]
which is so closely associated with it; this alienates him from his people and drives
him into battle, where he is killed. In his case, Virgil adds an unexpected touch, the
love that he shows for his son, which results in a conflict within his character that
would do credit to Victor Hugo. In the boat-race, Cloanthus is the ideal captain; as
for the other contestants, Gyas loses because of his obstinacy, Sergestus because of
his frantic impetuosity, and Memmius is overtaken at the last moment because he
has failed to secure the support of the gods.
This is sufficient to show the technique that Virgil used to construct his charac-
ters. It is clear that this technique will result in a preponderance of generalized
figures, and an absence of individual traits; and this is a weakness in Virgil's
281 characterization. The majority of critics, certainly, are distressed not to find any
sharply-defined individuals, and have therefore failed to do justice to those aspects
of Virgil's characterization that are comparatively successful. Such aspects certainly
exist; I hope that my earlier discussion of Turnus, for example, has made it clear that
he is a good deal more than a schematized conventional hero; Virgil maintains this
simple basic character, with appropriate nuances, in a wide variety of situations, and
does so in a lively and consistent manner, and his character is put in a clearer light,
with a well-calculated development and many finely observed details, by means of
effective contrasts. All these touches are introduced very subtly and could easily be
missed by a hasty reader. We should also credit the poet with another merit: he
never overdoes things, and never stoops to cheap effects. His intentions would have
been clearer if he had described people's characters directly, but he hardly ever
does, except when the plot requires it, as in the case of Evander's account of
Mezentius; only in the case of a minor figure such as Drances does the poet himself
explain the motivation of an action, when it cannot be deduced from the action itself
(11.336). Furthermore, he certainly makes no attempt to avoid stock characterizing
epithets – pius Aeneas , Mezentius contemptor divum , Messapus equum domitor
[Aeneas the true, Mezentius scorner of the gods, Messapus tamer of horses] being
content to follow traditional epic practice; but he does not merely fob us off with
these epithets; on the contrary, he is careful to illustrate them in the action.