Propaganda In The Aeneid

“ I found Rome built of bricks; I leave her clothed in marble.” These enduring words are the last spoken by Augustus Caesar, the first emperor of Rome. Before he was deemed Princeps Civitatis, translated to mean first citizen of Rome, he was a leading member of the second triumvirate named Octavian. One of the triumvirate’s other members, Antony, caused a break in power when he aided his wife and Queen of Egypt, Cleopatra. When war was declared on her by Rome, a series of battles ensued and ended with the death of Antony and Cleopatra, and a great victory for Octavian. These wars left him with a new title of Augustus as well as the undisputed dominant power in Rome. Now that he had attained such power, he wanted to maintain it at all costs. To do this, he had to be backed by not only the Roman Senate and aristocracy; but also by Rome’s everyday citizen. In an effort to uphold his public image, he tasked a renowned poet, Virgil, to begin work on an epic that would rival the greatness of the kind found in ancient Rome. Despite being written by arguably the best poet of ancient Rome, The Aeneid contains propaganda older than the word itself. Themes found within the piece show a clear preference towards and vindicate all the accomplishments and actions of Augustus Caesar and Rome itself.
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1) The way that the Aeneid opens is typical of a Latin epic. The main subject of discussion is presented, and from there the story can begin. In the original Latin, the first line would read as viru que cano, or arms the man I see. The first word in this case, arms, referred to the many battles that Aeneas is set to fight throughout the work. After this bold introduction, however, the man at war isn’t even mentioned by name for the next 130 lines. This entire space is filled with a brief exposition of the story, followed by the internal dialogue of Juno and her bidding the god Aeolus to stir Aeneas and his men off