The Facets of Passion and Duty
By Michael Shen
Duty is a recurring theme throughout Virgil’s The Aeneid. It plays a crucial
role as a key character trait for the individuals that we encounter. If one takes
the protagonist Aeneas aside and analyzes his persistent adherence to his own
destiny, along with his unending concern for the welfare of his Trojan people,
one could entertain the idea that his dedication and responsibility foreshadow
the concept of duty to the Republic and obedience to Caesar that might have
prevailed in Virgil’s Roman society.
"Duty-bound Aeneas", as Virgil often describes him (The Aeneid, p. 110, l.
545), often has to make difficult decisions, sometimes at the expense of his
own immediate happiness, to fulfill his destiny as founder of Rome.
Throughout his journeys, he encounters various trials where each refines a
different aspect of his character, evolving him into a hero and a leader. Indeed,
his romantic affair with Dido of Carthage forces him to make the difficult
choice of duty over love (p. 107), and the remorse that he displays as he
placates her spirit in the Underworld demonstrates his sincere regret for having
hurt her (p. 175). Concerning Dido, one clearly sees that responsibility holds a
greater importance than emotion for Aeneas. However, in the war with the
Latins, one no longer perceives such a defined moral code. Aeneas’
inconsistent behavior is apparent in his last battle with Turnus. Turnus pleads
with Aeneas to return his dead body to his father Daunus for a proper burial (p.
402, l. 1270-3), yet Aeneas, at the site of his fallen comrade’s swordbelt on the
shoulder of Turnus, fills with rage and kills Turnus without answering his
request. It is evident that one can only explain such a display of savagery on the
part of Aeneas through a loss of emotional control. Indeed, Aeneas lost his
sense of duty and respect for his fellowman in the instant he took Turnus’ life.
Turnus was an enemy of Aeneas, very much the same way Hektor was with
respect to Achilleus in The Iliad. However, throughout his travels, one can
gather that Aeneas is in fact not an individual devoid of sympathy and
benevolence for his enemies. Take for instance the compassion he shows
toward the Danaan sailor, left by Ulysses (Odysseus) on the island of the
Cyclops (p. 87). The sailors clothing betrayed his identity as an enemy of the
Trojans, yet this fact did not stop Aeneas from showing pity toward this
individual. Aeneas extended kindness to the Greek as a fellow human, rather
than an archenemy, by adopting him as one of their own (p. 89). The Trojan
War has just ended at this point, and Troy fell at the hands of the invading
Greek army; surely, one could imagine the amount of hatred both peoples still
had toward the other. Yet Aeneas acted as a true leader and a role model for his
fellow Trojans to follow by extending kindness to a sworn enemy.
Aeneas shows this similar humanitarian compassion on another occasion, and
in this case the individual was a Latin, just like Turnus. When Lausus, son of
Mezentius, dies at the hands of Aeneas, Virgil describes Aeneas as moved by
"profound pity" when he beholds how young the boy was (p. 324). He proceeds
to tell the dying child that he will not strip him of his armor, a conqueror’s
prize; he even returns Lausus’ body to the Latin people to be given a proper
burial. So given both this encounter and the one with the Danaan sailor, one can
conclude that Aeneas has the capacity to show mercy to anyone, friend or foe
alike.
It seems uncharacteristic, then, that Turnus did not benefit from this
compassionate side of Aeneas. When Turnus beseeches him on his knees to
grant his request for a proper burial, he requests that Aeneas remember the
relationship he had with his own father Achises (p. 402, l. 1268-9). Turnus
merely asks that his body, dead or alive, be returned to his father after Aeneas
is done with him. At this moment, it almost seems as if our hero will extend his
greatest act of compassion yet to be seen in the epic so far by granting Turnus
his life and letting him go home in peace (p. 402, l. 1277-81). In fact, one could
argue that if Aeneas does grant Turnus his life, doing so would be a very wise
political maneuver in attaining a valuable friend, or potential ally, in the region.
Which path does Aeneas choose to take concerning the fate of this great Latin
prince?
Alas, Aeneas chooses not to extend such a prudent, political gesture. This
decision [to kill Turnus without even granting his request] was not a product of
rational thought. Virgil tells us: "Then to [Aeneas’] glance appeared the accurst
swordbelt surmounting Turnus’ shoulder […] –the strap young Pallas wore
when Turnus wounded him and left him dead upon the field" (p. 402, l. 12815). At the sight of the swordbelt that once belonged to his dear Trojan brother,
Aeneas "raged at the relic of his anguish" and blazed with a terrible anger (p.
402, l. 1287-1290). The intensity of feeling is so vividly portrayed in Virgil’s
writing. This flood of emotion and fraternal love for his fellow Trojan clearly
overpowers his thought processes of deciding the right course of action to take
concerning Turnus. If concept of duty is so important to Aeneas, could one
logically conclude that he faltered in this moment of indecision and abrupt
action? What happened to the benevolent, humanitarian Aeneas that saved the
life of one enemy and honored the death of another? Both the Greek and Latin
mentioned earlier who were recipients of his mercy must have killed Trojans in
the past. They were not any different than Turnus, since they too were enemies
of the Trojan people. Hence, it is difficult not to conclude that Aeneas’ better
sense of judgement was clouded by violent passion when he took Turnus’ life.
However, one can ponder if such drastic behavior really was uncharacteristic of
Aeneas. For instance, in his affairs with Dido, it required the goading of the
god Mercury to get him back on track to Italy (p. 105). Before that, it seemed
as if he was quite content with his life in Carthage, overcome with love for
Dido and the comfortable feeling of permanence and stability away from the
tumultuous sea. Although in the end, duty did prevail over passion, one cannot
validly say that Aeneas came to such conclusions on his own. One does not
need to read so far into the epic to see how Aeneas is so easily swayed by
emotion. When Troy was burning to the ground, Aeneas, filled with shame and
frantic rage, was prepared to die fighting, neglecting his future destiny as the
progenitor of Rome. Yet, it took both the pleading of his wife as well as a
divine sign from heaven to persuade him, as well as his father, to flee the city
(p. 105-6). In fact, throughout The Aeneid, Aeneas frequently relied on oracles
and other divine messengers for guidance and direction. One could even say
that if it were not for such instances of divine intervention, Aeneas would have
strayed off his fated path much more frequently, and with greater
consequences, because of his emotional spontaneity. So perhaps the murder of
Turnus was not so uncharacteristic of Aeneas after all. No god or divine oracle
was present to prevent Aeneas from taking his life; there was no one by his side
to help him make the more benevolent decision in the heat of his passion.
Perhaps "duty-bound Aeneas" might be too misleading of a phrase to describe
our hero’s character; rather, "pushed-to-duty, divinely-goaded Aeneas" might
be a more appropriate classification.
On a different note, one could also approach Aeneas’ sense of duty from
another angle. While he might have had compassion for certain enemies, given
the circumstances and his emotional state, Aeneas’ love for his fellow Trojans
and his concern for their futures have always been constant and the purveying
influence of thoughts and actions. Aeneas takes his destiny as the founder of a
great future empire very seriously. However, he does not seemed to be so
concerned with the status he would achieve as ruler as much as he desires to
leave his people, particularly his son Ascanius, a rich and stable legacy in Italy
(p. 108). One can witness how he his sense of duty toward his traveling
companions places their safety above convenience, as can be seen in his
decision to sail around the length of Sicily rather than risk losing a few of his
men to Scylla and Charybdis, monsters of the narrow pass between Italy and
Sicily (p. 80-1, 85).
Aeneas is always concerned about the welfare of the collective, and perhaps his
foremost sense of duty stems from this fraternal love. This sort of love and
loyalty can be seen in other members of his company, hence reinforcing the
idea that this devotion to one’s fellow brother is actually a defining
characteristic of the Trojan people rather than just Aeneas himself. Palinurus is
a prime example of an individual who placed the safety of his fellow Trojans
ahead of his own (p. 155). He died while attempting to navigate Aeneas’ ship
safely through rough waters; even in the Underworld, his concern for the wellbeing of Aeneas and the other Trojans over his own eternal fate is astounding.
Nisus, too, was overcome with anger and remorse for his fallen comrade
Euryalus and succumbed to emotional fury in his drive for vengeance (p. 2756). Although Nisus could have contributed much more to the war-effort by
rejoining the ranks of Aeneas, instead his fraternal love for Euryalus prompted
a suicidal rush at Volcens, the Latin troop-leader who killed his friend. In this
latter example, one might wonder if Nisus lost his sense of duty to his Trojan
people by sacrificing his life in a rash impulse to avenge the life of another. On
the other hand, this entire scene was so touching that one admires the love that
these Trojan soldiers have for each other.
Such a display of brotherly affection between Nisus and Euryalus might help
explain why Aeneas killed Turnus in the heat of emotional rage. Both the
stranded Greek sailor and Lausus killed Trojan men, but neither of them
possessed a trophy so blatant, or antagonistic, as did Turnus. Metaphorically
speaking, the swordbelt of Pallas that Turnus wore as a war-trophy acted as a
red flag flashing before the eyes of a raging bull. Aeneas’s love for Pallas
created a fury so powerful that he even dedicated his kill to his dead friend by
crying out: "This would will come from Pallas: Pallas make this offering and
from your criminal blood exacts his due." (p. 402, l. 1292-4) Given these facts,
it seems as if fraternal love actually holds a greater weight than romantic love
for Aeneas; for in the case with Dido, duty prevailed, while in the case with
Pallas, emotion prevailed.
Now if one could rationalize Aeneas’ cold-blooded killing of Turnus by
attributing his behavior to intense love, there are other instances in The
Aeneid that cause the reader to question his sense of duty to others who were
not enemies of the Trojans. For instance, if we turn to the attack on Latinus’
city near the end of the epic, the analysis of the impulses behind Aeneas’
warrior-like behavior is not so straightforward. One can understand how the
war between Turnus and Aeneas engendered hatred between the two parties,
since Turnus was clearly a threat and the initial aggressor. However, Latinus
accepted Aeneas as the one fated to both marry his daughter and rule his
kingdom; he graciously opened his city to the Trojans, welcoming them to Italy
(p. 204-5). Furthermore, the Trojans approached Latinus in a very peaceful,
almost obsequious, manner by claiming that they ask only for "a modest
settlement" in Italy and that they "bring harm to no one" (p. 203). Aeneas even
swore to King Latinus that he would "not make Italians underlings to Trojans.
[…] Let both nations, both unconquered, both subject to equal laws, commit
themselves to an eternal union." (p. 374, l. 255-9)
Hence, one finds it harder to justify the Trojan attack on King Latinus given the
circumstances of this peaceful pact between both nations. The violent tone of
Aeneas’ words as he gave the command to besiege Latinus’ city contrasts
greatly with the promises of peace and prosperity he gave earlier. In fact,
Latinus did not attack the Trojans at all, but rather it was the uncooperative
nature of Turnus and his armies that brought about Aeneas’ decision to attack
the city. He himself said: "Unless our enemies accept our yoke and promise to
obey us, on this day I shall destroy their town, root of this war, soul of Latinus’
kingdom." (p. 388, l. 771-81) A farmer puts a yoke around the neck of an ox to
plow the fields. Is this subservient metaphor an accurate definition of Trojan
equality? If Aeneas demands that everyone must obey the decrees of the
Trojans, I sincerely doubt that the Trojans would be subjected to the same laws.
Rather, it appears as if Aeneas would rather have a kingdom for his Trojan
brethren that consists of a conglomerate of subservient, conquered nations. One
could then logically ask, does Aeneas keep his promise with Latinus in not
making his people slaves of the Trojans? Was his attack on the kingdom of
Latinus a momentary lapse of honor and duty or a permanent transition in his
treatment of the Italian people? One only needs to examine the glance at the
power of Rome in Virgil’s day, or even in the days of Jospehus’ Jewish Wars,
to see how hated the Romans were by those whom they have conquered and
enslaved. Indeed, Rome became a great empire with many colonies and ruled
by a powerful and reputably ruthless military. Therefore, it would not be
terribly erroneous to conclude that Aeneas and his descendants did indeed
break their promises for peace and equality with the Italian people. Although
most agree that the war with Turnus and Latinus is fictitious, perhaps as a story
concerned with the founding of the Rome, it provides some historical or
sociological explanation for the evolution of a cruel Roman imperialistic
empire.
So in the end, I suppose the real question would be: "As an ever-evolving
character, did Aeneas permanently lose his compassion and humanitarian
nature, only to evolve into a malicious despot in the end?" Virgil does not give
a clear answer to this question, but given the development of events in the epic
poem, as well as the historical facts of Roman Imperialism, one could safely
conclude that Aeneas most likely did break his promise to King Latinus. The
Aeneas that saved the Danaan sailor and honored the body of Lausus the Latin
is not the same Aeneas that attacked Latinus and murdered Turnus.
Consequently, one could also confidently conclude that Aeneas did not honor
Turnus’ last request for his body to be returned to his father for a proper burial,
although Achilleus eventually did just so concerning the body of Hektor.
Driven constantly by passion and emotion throughout his journeys, it would
seem that Aeneas retained, if not strengthened, his sense of duty and fraternal
love for his fellow Trojan, but on the other hand lost his sense of duty and
respect for his fellowman.
http://www.columbia.edu/itc/lithum/gallo/aeneid.html