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Fate and Tragedy in The Aeneid
Most heroes of Greek and Roman epics are defined by a single, prominent trait of theirs. The Iliad’s Achilles was courageous, The Odyssey’s Odysseus was cunning, and The Aeneid’s Aeneas was dutiful.
But maybe this defining trait was assigned unjustly. Aeneas shirks his duties to the city of Carthage and its queen, Dido, massively, devastatingly, by leaving the city to falter and fail instead of helping it to rise. He may have fulfilled his destiny, according to the gods, but ultimately, he failed in his duty to his people, and to Dido.
Aeneas Flees to Carthage
In the second book of the Aeneid, we witness a flashback to the fall of Troy, through the eyes of our hero. We learn about the tragedy he and his men faced, the pure destruction of the city, the death of the king, and, most chillingly, we witness the ghost of Creusa, Aeneas’ wife, killed in the fires of the Greeks.
There end your toils; and there your fates provide
A quiet kingdom, and a royal bride:
There fortune shall the Trojan line restore,
And you for lost Creusa weep no more. — The Aeneid, Book 2
She appears to him as a shade, telling him that there is something better waiting for him if he leaves Troy now. This gives us Aeneas’ motive for fleeing Troy instead of dying in battle amid his comrades in arms, an honorable death by Greek and Trojan standards. When he arrived in Carthage, Aeneas believed that this was the city meant for him, beautiful and shining, with Queen Dido practically throwing herself at his feet.
Had Aeneas not left the city behind, his people could have risen again, strong in their intermixing with the Carthaginians. They could have settled into the city that was happy to welcome them, refugees from a burned home. And with everything provided to him, home, wealth, people, prospects, why would he leave it all behind?
The Gods’ Influence
He was led by Mercury, the messenger of the gods. Mercury appears to Aeneas, bearing Zeus’ message that he is “blind to his own realm, oblivious to [his] fate,” and to the duty he owes his son, the birthright he would pass down…
