Parallels between Virgil's Aeneid and Homer's Iliad and Odyssey facts for kids
When Virgil wrote the Aeneid, he looked closely at Homer's famous poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey. He wanted to create a special national poem for the Roman people. Virgil used many ideas from Homer's epics. These included writing in a specific poetic style called hexameter verse, dividing the story into books, listing family trees (called genealogies), and using similar main ideas. By doing this, he showed how the Romans were connected to the ancient Greeks, who came before them.
Contents
Aeneid and the Iliad: What's Similar?
The second part of the Aeneid, from Book VI to Book XII, has many similarities to the Iliad.
Brave Heroes and Their Journeys
In Book VI of the Aeneid, a prophetess named the Sibyl of Cumae tells Aeneas about his future. She says there will be a hero born in Latium (an area in Italy) who is like Achilles. This new hero, like Achilles, will also be the son of a goddess. The story hints that both Aeneas and Turnus might be this "Latin Achilles."
When Aeneas's friend Pallas dies, Aeneas becomes filled with intense anger and a desire for revenge. This strong emotion is called furor. It's similar to how Achilles feels when his friend Patroclus dies in the Iliad. This theme of furor is common in epic poems. It gives the heroes strong reasons to fight and get revenge.
Future Foretold: Prophecies
Prophecies, or predictions about the future, are a big part of epic poems like the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Aeneid. In the Iliad, readers knew from the start that the Greeks were meant to win against the Trojans. Zeus, the king of the gods, had declared it. Achilles also knew his fate: if he went to war, he would die a hero.
Similarly, in Book II of the Aeneid, the ghost of Hector tells Aeneas to leave burning Troy. He tells Aeneas that he is meant to find a new city. Throughout the rest of the Aeneid, the gods often remind Aeneas that he is destined to find Italy and establish Rome for future generations.
Amazing Shields: Ekphrasis
Another thing Virgil copied from the Iliad is the detailed description of Aeneas's shield. This is called an ekphrasis, which means a literary description of a work of art. In Book VIII of the Aeneid, Vulcan, the Roman god of fire and metalworking (like the Greek god Hephaestus), makes a shield for Aeneas before he goes to battle. This is very similar to Hephaestus making Achilles's shield in Book XVII of the Iliad.
Both heroes' mothers, Venus (Aeneas's mother) and Thetis (Achilles's mother), were worried about their sons before the war. So, both went to Vulcan/Hephaestus and asked him to create special armor and a shield for their sons. After the god of fire finished his creations, the poets gave a very detailed description of the shields.
Achilles's shield showed everything in the world at that time, including opposites like war and peace, and heaven and earth. Aeneas's shield, however, showed the future glories of Rome. It depicted events like Romulus, the founder of Rome, with his twin brother Remus being cared for by a she-wolf. It also showed Augustus's victory at the Battle of Actium.
Aeneid and the Odyssey: A Journey Together
The first half of the Aeneid is very much like Odysseus's long journey in the Odyssey. Even though the Odyssey covers 24 books and the Aeneid only uses 6 books for this part, there are many clear comparisons.
Main Characters and Their Challenges
Both Odysseus and Aeneas are important leaders. Odysseus is the king of Ithaca, and Aeneas is a Trojan prince. Neither hero would have reached their goals without help from the gods. However, some gods also tried to stop them and make their journeys harder.
Odysseus's main enemy among the gods was Poseidon, the god of the sea. Odysseus angered Poseidon by blinding his son, Polyphemus, a giant Cyclops. Because of this, Poseidon caused many storms to blow the Greek ships off course or even destroy them.
For Aeneas, Hera was the goddess who tried everything to stop him from fulfilling his destiny. Hera hated the Trojans ever since the Trojan prince Paris chose Aphrodite as the most beautiful goddess, instead of Hera or Athena. Storms caused by Hera also blew the Trojan fleet around and off course. This eventually led them to Carthage, which gave Hera even more reasons to dislike Aeneas and the Trojans.
Stories Inside Stories
Both the Aeneid and the Odyssey use a storytelling technique where a character tells a story within the main story. This adds more layers to the epic. Both poems start in medias res, which means "in the middle of things." The heroes then tell what happened before.
In the Odyssey, Odysseus washes up on the shores of Scheria, the land of the Phaeacians. They welcome him kindly and ask how he got there. Odysseus then spends Books IX through XII telling his journey from Troy up to that point.
In the Aeneid, when Aeneas arrives in Carthage, Queen Dido asks him to share his story. So, Books II and III are Aeneas narrating the fall of Troy and how he and his people arrived at Carthage.
Both heroes sail across the same sea, sometimes visiting the same places and facing similar problems. In Book III of the Aeneid, Aeneas and his men almost encounter Scylla and Charybdis, dangerous sea monsters. Odysseus and his men face them in Book XII of the Odyssey. Later, the Trojans land on the island of the Cyclopes, just as Aeneas does in Book III. Luckily, Aeneas's crew did not suffer the same terrible fate as some of Odysseus's crew. Virgil even included a very thin Greek named Achaemenides, who had sailed with Odysseus but was left behind.
Both heroes also make a special trip to the Underworld (the land of the dead). They go there to get important information from people who have passed away.
Finding a New Home
When Odysseus finally arrives back in Ithaca, he finds many men called suitors in his home. They are destroying his house and trying to marry his wife, Penelope. Odysseus then fights and kills these suitors to take back his home.
Similarly, Aeneas is meant to find his new home in Latium and marry Princess Lavinia. But he is met by the army of Turnus. Turnus was the king of the Rutuli people and Lavinia's main suitor before Aeneas arrived. Aeneas must fight Turnus and his army before he can finally settle in his new home.
