Posted by chris brav on January 09, 1999 at 17:18:24:
In Reply to: Aeneas' character posted by riffet mohammed on October 19, 1998 at 09:04:50:
: Chris Brav
Interim GC
Prof. Santurri
Hero, my Aeneass!
Some will say that today a hero is one who is looked up to by others. But many wicked and scoundrelish men are looked up to by others. A small time thief looks up to the man who can walk out of the Louvre with the Mona Lisa under his jacket, but that does not make such a man a hero. No, a hero is he who does good deeds, and not only does them, but does them in an honorable way. If a somewhat poor man wishes to feed a wholly wretched family, and does so by selling cocaine to rich kids, he is not a hero; if, however, he shares with the wretched family what little he has, then he is a hero, for he both did a good deed and did it in an honorable way. A hero therefore is he who by his virtues-courage, goodness, wisdom, mercy, justice-causes others to say, 'Would to God that I were like him!'
In the Aeneid, however, and in much of Greek and Latin literature, the reader often finds 'heroes' that cause him to say, 'Thank God that I am not him!' In classical literature, men often do things because they are fated to do them. Some would therefore say that a classical hero is he who fulfills his fate in an honorable way. But sometimes the 'hero' is fated to do evil(as Oedipus was), and evil cannot be done honorably. However many virtues Oedipus had, however honorably he lived his life, Oedipus was not a hero insofar as he fulfilled his fate, for his fate was to kill his father and to sleep with his mother, both of which good men do not see as heroic.
In classical literature, then, a hero is not he who just has virtues(as Oedipus did), but he who has a good fate and fulfills it in an honorable way. If Bob is fated to save his mother from dying of kidney failure, and does so by walking out onto the street, grabbing an old woman for whom no one cares, hitting her on the head with a brick, cutting her heart out, and giving it to the doctors to be transplanted in his mother, he is not a hero; if he saves his mother by giving up his own kidneys, he is.
Because nothing evil is heroic, he who has an evil fate must not be called the hero, but rather the tragic hero. As Aristotle said, tragedies are meant to raise fear and pity in the heart of the reader, and nothing does this as well as a story about a man who is fated to do evil. When a good man reads the story of Oedipus, his heart will be filled with fear that he too could have been fated(or even is fated) to kill his father and sleep with his mother, and his heart will be filled with pity for the man who is given such a fate.
In classical literature, then, there can be two kinds of heroes: the hero-hero(as it were) and the tragic hero. In the Aeneid, Turnus is the hero-hero, and Aeneas is the tragic hero, for Turnus's fate was good, and Aeneas's fate was evil. To some, Turnus's fate will not seem good: he was fated to have his bride stolen and to fight a losing war. For these things, Vergil says that Turnus had an 'unjust fate.' By this he means that Turnus was not dealt a fate worthy of him. He had done nothing wrong that would lose him his bride, nothing wrong that would bring conquerors upon his land. But however unjust his fate was, his fate was still to do good: to die fighting injustice. That the Romans thought some unjust fates were good fates can be seen in the story of Marcus Atilius Regulus, whom the Carthaginians made to swear that he would take their peace-offer to Rome. (He was to be set free if the Romans accepted.) Having come to Rome, he gave them the offer of peace, then told them to refuse, which they did. After that, he got ready to go back to Carthage, for the Romans had not accepted the offer of peace, and so he was not free from the Carthaginians. His fellows, and the state itself, told him not to go back; that he could stay in Rome and be safe. But he answered that it was wrong to break oaths, and so he went back to Carthage and was killed for his failure. He later became for the Romans a model of the virtue of oath-keeping; that is, he became a hero for doing a good deed(keeping his oath) in an honorable way(serving his country). Although Turnus was fated to a good deed (to die fighting injustice), he did not become a Roman hero, for men do not make heroes out of their enemies, even though they sometimes respect them. It is however quite likely that he became a hero among the Rutulians.
Even Aeneas did not become a hero-hero among the Romans; that is, they did not look up to him for doing good deeds in an honorable way. Rather, they looked up to him for doing bad deeds, just as the small time thief looks up to the big time thief. Unlike the thief, however, the Romans did not believe that that their hero's injustices were bad, even though in someone who was not such a great forefather they would have. In the first book of On Duties, Cicero says that there are two kinds of injustices: those that a man does for fear that if he does not do them he will suffer, and those that he does to fulfill his wishes. It is these latter that Aeneas does, for he takes Lavinia and wages war on the Italians so that he can have land and empire. Even his wish to have land and empire(not just the war) was unjust, for the land belonged to the Italians. As Cicero says, 'If anyone else should seek any of it for himself[private property; land], he will be violating the law of human fellowship'(On Duties, Book 1, last sentence in 21).
Seeing Aeneas's injustices, maybe Vergil tried to justify them by bringing in fate. It is not clear, however, that the Romans would admit that some are fated to do evil. They were big on justice and law and morality, and the thought that a man can be fated to do evil throws all of that out the door. Taking the fate reading, Aeneas is a tragic hero for he is fated to do injustices. As for me, this is how I took Aeneas, and I had the feelings that Aristotle says we ought to feel when reading a tragedy. I pitied Aeneas for being fated to kill many guiltless men and to found an empire that would kill many thousand more, for the man who does injustice is most wretched in soul. I did not feel fear, however, for I believe in fate only when I am reading a book that deals with fate; when I shut the book, the belief is gone. But if I did believe in fate, my soul would tremble, for that would mean that I myself could be fated to do injustice, and so be damned to wretchedness of soul.
Vergil himself, however, does not seem to have seen Aeneas this way. The tone of the Aeneid is heroic, not tragic. The opening lines-I sing of arms and the man-set the reader up for a tale of great deeds done well. Instead, he finds a tragic hero being praised-as if Oedipus were given a triumph! If Vergil saw this unfitness of tone, if he meant it, then the poem is a most bitter one indeed. And that is how I felt about it. But it is hard to know just what Vergil was thinking. If he did not see Aeneas as a tragic hero, and saw him rather as a hero-hero, he would try to justify the deeds of Aeneas, just as most men try to justify the deeds of the founders of their state. Lanfranc did it with William the Bastard. Americans do it with their 'Founding Fathers'. If this is how the Aeneid is to be taken, Aeneas is just like the big time thief who is looked up to by small time thieves.
In the end it is not at all clear what kind of hero Aeneas is(or was meant to be). He cannot be taken as a hero-hero, for anyway it is looked at(with a belief in fate or with a belief in free will), he did evil. Some Romans would not have admitted this, for Aeneas was their great forefather, but according to their morality(and ours), he did indeed do evil. If he was fated to do this evil, he was given an 'unjust fate', for he was a good man made to do evil. He must then be taken as a tragic hero. But the tone of the poem pushes the reader to take Aeneas as the hero-hero. Putting the two together(tragic story and heroic tone) makes a bitter drink. Whether or not he knew it, it is almost as if Vergil is mocking heroism. The best answer seems to be then that Aeneas is not hero, that in the Aeneid, no one is a hero.