|
|
334-82-2140 Dr. Esolen 11/19/03 Was Pietas Successful in Roman Society? Though it seems in Roman society , the principle of virtue or pietas provides the ideal way to live (devotion to your father, state, and Gods), both Matthew’s “Sermon on the Mount” and Virgil’s The Aeneid contradict the success of piety. In The Aeneid, the protagonist, Aeneas, is a Trojan prince who flees the ruins of Troy in search for his new fatherland. In his voyage, he encounters many obstacles set by the God’s, and eventually reaches the coast of Lavinium, where Rome will be founded . Fundamentally, The Aeneid unknowingly sets the stage in refuting the success of the theme pietas, when Aeneas decides to take the life of the innocent warrior Turnus. After this event, all paganism ends in a state of absolute hopelessness, despair, and failure with no justification for his death. In Matthew’s “Sermon on the Mount”, Jesus creates the Beatitudes. When one follows these new virtues, one shows their understanding, and are fully committed to live for God through Christ. Applying these principles means following the will of the heavenly Father, and not exclusively abiding to Roman virtues. When Jesus created the new laws, he intended to fulfill them, not abolish them, and ultimately solving the problem that piety could not answer. Deep down in the underworld in chapter six of The Aeneid, Aeneas’s father, Anchises, delivers a speech to him where he unfolds the destiny of Rome. “To rule the people under law, to establish the way of peace, to battle down the haughty, to spare the meek. Our fine arts, these, forever”(Aeneid chap. VI, lines 620-622). Anchises suggests to Aeneas that in order to produce a strong presence of social stability and peace throughout the state, the Roman people need to get rid of those who think they are superior to others, and become more merciful than violent in their conquests; furthermore Anchises believes that these principles of Rome will maintain a strong and powerful empire. But are these sole principles of pietas enough to provide the answer to universal humanity or a hope for justice? The answer to that question is “no”. There is a need for something outside of the world to answer that question. Here is where the birth of Christ, followed by his laws, his death, and his miracles, including his resurrection, come into affect; proving the statement that pietas was unsuccessful in Roman society. In the last chapter of the poem, the epic battle between the Trojan Aeneas, and the great warrior of Rome, Turnus, takes place in the courtyard of the city of Lavinium. There they fight for the rights of the soil they are fighting on, and the hand in marriage to the king’s daughter Lavinia. The warrior Turnus stands in the way of Rome’s destiny; the promised land that will become a great empire. In a seemingly endless fight, Aeneas finally gains leverage and finds Turnus pleading for mercy on his hands and knees.
|
