Vergil devotes much of the Aeneid to the wars that
Aeneas must complete to create his own manifest destiny. However,
for all the apparent glorification of war in the various battles in the
book, Vergil actually condemns war in the Aeneid. In the Trojan war
and the battle against Turnus, Vergil demonstrates that war is a destructive,
painful thing that could be easily avoided if humans could stop being so
destructively emotional. Vergil demonstrates this, particularly,
in the torrid love affair between Aeneas and Dido and in the fury of Turnus
that causes him to break his and Aeneas’ treaty. In demonstrating
this, Vergil shows his own hidden distaste in the wars and events that
lead to the Pax Romana, particularly the Battle of Actium.
The Trojan war is the most obvious clue as to how Vergil
views war. The war, as told through the Trojan side, tells of the
killing of brave heroes, the butchery of children, the rape of women, the
pillage of beloved heirlooms, and the desecration of gods.
Vergil describes, “The boy has reached his parents, and before them/Goes
down, pouring out his life with blood” showing how wars destroy even the
innocent and emotionally crush their families (p. 52). Aeneas describes
the entire war as having, “Sorrow too deep to tell,” showing his own lingering
pain from the affair, even though he escaped relatively unscathed with
his father and son (p. 33). This is very different than the views
of war shown in the Iliad and Odyssey, where, despite the many flaws of
the Greeks, they could still remain heroes rather than become bloodthirsty
monsters as they appear in the Aeneid.
However, the later battle between Turnus and Aeneas would appear to show that war is not as evil as it first appeared. Vergil depicts Aeneas as the brilliant conqueror of the uncontrolled Turnus, who vanquishes the raging man to fulfill the will of the gods. However, even in this war, Vergil shows grief, particularly through Turnus’ sister, Juturna. She wails that she wishes that she could become mortal as well and “go with my poor brother/Into the darkness,” so that her emotional pain would be ended (p. 400). With the grief around the participants in this tragedy, Vergil asks us to consider other alternatives to this battle. Turnus could have saved his own life by thinking rationally and by following the accords of the treaty, sparing not only his own life, but the life of Pallas and the despair of his sister. And, even though Aeneas won, he also could have agreed to allow Lavinia marry Turnus and to found his empire in another part of the world. It would seem that Vergil tells us that there are always reasonable options to war.
One such possibility is seen near the beginning of the Aeneid. Juno and Venus pretend to agree to end their war that has lasted since before the Trojan war by the marriage of Aeneas and Dido. They could then rule Carthage “side by side/With equal authority?” and rule the world together in peace rather than participate in the later wars (p. 99). Not only would the Rome problem be solved with no bloodshed, but Venus and Juno could both mend their own differences and make peace between the often opposing forces of Love and Marriage that conflict continually in the book between the emotional love and the calm, contractual marriage. Unfortunately, the emotional love that Dido feels for Aeneas and Aeneas’ overwhelming need to complete what he feels is the will of the gods, undermine any possible marriage between the two and the treaty for peace is broken.
Vergil does not explicitly state this idea in the book, however, because of his employer. As Vergil was working under Augustus Caesar, he most likely felt prohibited from writing any criticism of Augustus’ regime. However, it is likely that he did include veiled criticism of how Augustus came to power and began the Pax Romana in the Battle of Actium. It was in this battle that Augustus defeated Mark Anthony (his former brother-in-law) and Anthony’s Egyptian consort, Cleopatra, a former lover of his sponsor Julius Caesar. With so many close relations all at civil war with each other, it is almost certain that there was not only the loss of many lives, but also the tearing apart of families. Was the Pax Romana worth such heart ache, and could it have been achieved through other methods that did not involve war? Had Augustus, Anthony, and Cleopatra been cautious and thought things through, rather than letting emotions and love get in the way, could all of this have been averted much in the way that the wars over Troy and Rome could have been averted by clear and logical thinking?
Although history cannot be changed, Vergil challenges us to find sensible solutions to our problems rather than blindly and emotionally charging at them like Turnus. We are reminded of the problems that such rash actions can create, such as sorrow, death, pain, and war, and are thus asked to think about these consequences before we embark on a thoughtless path of action. Although these ideas are concealed in the Aeneid, Vergil does ask us to think about not only the horrors of war, but that of all foolhardy human action that we again and again fall victim to.