Aeneas, the Antihero of the AeneidMany people seem to be under the impression that the Aeneid is a celebration of Roman glory, led by the hero of destiny Aeneas. I find these preconceived ideas difficult to reconcile with my actual reading of the text. For starters, I have a hard time seeing Aeneas as a hero. Almost all the other major characters in the epic, from Dido to Camilla to Turnus, have more heroic qualities than Aeneas. This is especially notable because many of these characters are his enemies. Furthermore, Aeneas is presented as a man without free will. He is not so much bound by duty as protected by it. It offers a convenient way for the buzz to dodge crucial moral questions. While this doesn't necessarily make him a bad person, it certainly makes him weak. Of course, some will argue that it takes greater moral conviction to ignore personal temptations and act for the good of people. These analysts are avoiding the issue just as Aeneas does. The fact is that Aeneas does not just sacrifice his own personal happiness for the common good; he also sacrifices the past of the Trojan people, particularly when he dishonors the memory of his fallen city by becoming the men he hated most, the invading Greeks. The image of Aeneas seen at the end of the Aeneid has some similarities to his own depiction of the savage and treacherous Greeks in the earlier books. The classic definition of a hero includes someone who is endowed with great courage and strength, and is celebrated for their daring exploits. In some ways Aeneas is very similar to other heroes encountered in other classical texts, but with fundamental differences. Gilgamesh, perhaps the first hero in chronological order, is a good place for... at the center of the card... the vagaries of human nature. Perhaps it was even an intentionally hidden message in the text to bring a sobering light to the perception of war as honorable and glorious. It may also have been a way for Virgil to express his resentment at having written a work that he knew would be seen as propaganda. I think it is very significant that Virgil tried to burn the epic on his deathbed, signaling not only that he was not satisfied with it, but perhaps that he regretted having written it with Aeneas in the role of hero. Works Cited and Consulted Fuller, Mary. "Forget the Aeneid." American Literary History 4:3 (1992): 517-38.Silvestris, Bernardus. Commentary on the first six books of Virgil's Aeneid. Translated by Schreiber and Maresca. University of Nebraska Press. London, 1979. Virgil. The Aeneid. Translated by Robert Fitzgerald. New York: Vintage Books, 1990.