The idea of ​​piety in ancient Rome is not the same idea of ​​piety that we have today. For the Romans, piety, or “pietas” in Latin, described a set of social constructs that govern what makes a person respectable. Piety encompasses devotion to the gods, love for one's country, respect for one's family, and understanding of destiny. These characteristics are essential for a great Roman ruler, so there is no doubt why Virgil calls Aeneas by “pious Aeneas” in his epic The Aeneid. The mythical ancestor of Romulus and Remus should possess these qualities; otherwise, he would not be able to control the hearts of his men as they search for their new home. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay If there must be godly people in this world, there must also be ungodly people. Impiety is easily defined as the opposite of great virtue. Fury, or "fury" in Latin, "connotes a frenzied disorder of mind and spirit, something akin to madness", in which the individual's behavior is often impetuous, violent or impulsive (Boyle 88). Those who are ungodly lead themselves to make foolish and unusual choices, with serious consequences. In The Aeneid, powerful figures such as Dido, Turnus, and Camilla find themselves giving in to their unholy fury, ultimately hindering their own progress or leading to their demise. Virgil uses these stories of piety and impiety to paint a picture of Rome's legendary history, inspiring his audience to admire Augustus, the heroic Roman leader of Virgil's time, and to legitimize Augustus' rule. Turnus appears in the seventh book of The Aeneid. , and is presented to us as Livina's suitor, the one who will eventually produce heirs for the throne of Latium. When Aeneas arrives in Latium, King Latinus promises him land for a new city as well as his daughter's hand in marriage, following Anchises' prophecy that Latinus' daughter would marry a foreigner. Allecto, a Fury summoned by Juno, incites Turnus to become angry at his king's decision, sowing the seed of impiety within Turnus. Over the course of the next four books, Turnus fights against Aeneas in a war for the hand of Lavinia. In Book IX, Turnus gathered his troops to attack the Trojans and eventually find a way to their camp. Virgil notes that Turnus could have opened the Trojan gates to let his troops in, but that his erratic and furious behavior prevented him from thinking clearly and strategically. Turnus then takes the belt from Pallas at the end of Book X, showing his reckless pride. This belt ultimately leads to his death, for when Aeneas sees it, he forgets his thoughts of sparing Turnus and flies into a furious rage, killing Turnus with a spear. Turnus may have sealed his own fate when he defied his king's wishes and continued to seek Lavinia's hand. This lack of piety led to a war which he could not win because Aeneas was destined to found a new city in Latium. It is worth mentioning, however, that Turnus is not a character completely devoid of piety. Indeed, in the last book of the epic, as Aeneas seizes the opportunity to attack the undefended city, Turnus hears the news of his queen's suicide and sees the suffering of his people. This reminder of the pain he is causing his own people by continuing this war offers a moment of clarity, a moment when he could escape his unholy fury. But as soon as Turnus comes to his senses, he gives in to his fury by challenging Aeneas to single combat. He knows that Aeneas must win, buthe realizes his misdeeds, succumbs to his fate and dies. In the end, he realizes his misdeed too late: his unwanted impiety was his greatest weakness. Any future ruler must not behave as carelessly as Turnus. Dido is another central character who experiences a lack of piety. While she was queen of Tyre, her brother Pygmalion murdered her husband and forced her to leave with some of her citizens to found the city of Carthage. She swears not to remarry again, in honor of her husband, and instead vows to place her priorities in government. Dido is depicted as a dedicated and pious leader. Her flaw is that she has earned the epithet “infelix,” which is defined as “unhappy, unhappy, and unhappy” (Covi 57). This image of a perfect ruler changes when Venus allows Dido to fall in love with Aeneas. Dido forgets her promise not to marry and gets closer to Aeneas, but above all, she begins to neglect her duties as queen. She admits her faults and therefore accepts that she is not acting with piety. As Madeline Covi explains in her essay “Dido in Virgil's Aeneid,” at this point in the text, “the language used about Dido once again suggests a guilty conscience: she is not moved specie famave ( 4.170) – but it must be implicitly in his mind” (58). In other words, the rumor of Dido's "furtivum amorem" or secret love, and its subsequent confirmation after her metaphorical marriage to Aeneas, weighs heavily on his mind (Covi 59). Her people feel betrayed by her broken promises and less attention to government, ultimately the result of her inability to remain pious. Dido, like Turnus, became aware of the errors that resulted in a lack of piety. But just like Turnus, Dido realized her mistakes and did not correct her faults. Following the trend of the ungodly, Dido begins to act impulsively when Aeneas tells her that he must leave her and follow his own destiny. Dido cries to the gods: "May he never enjoy his kingdom and the light to which he aspires, may he never die before his time, without burial on a desolate beach", cursing Aeneas and demanding "war between all our peoples, all their children, endless war” (Virgil 4.771-782). This impulsive curse would not have been pronounced by Dido if she had not succumbed to her fury. In fact, in the eyes of Virgil's Roman audience, the carefree Dido may have tragically condemned her people to years and years of aggression, namely the Punic Wars they would wage against Rome many centuries later. Ultimately, Dido commits suicide at her own funeral. burning at the stake using Aeneas' own sword, showing the power of a spirit that acts under the influence of fury. Later, we see her in the Fields of Mourning in the underworld of Dis, where she is doomed to eternal suffering due to her error in judgment. But again, like Turnus, Dido was not completely devoid of piety. At one point, she was a good enough leader to convince many people to follow her to a foreign land to found their own city, reminiscent of the mission that the pious Aeneas set out to accomplish. Ultimately, it was her inability to remain pious, to remain attached to her late husband, or to keep the interests of her people at hand, that led her to her desperate situation. Even Camilla, a young warrior and general of Turnus' army, lets ungodliness enter her life, leading to her quick death in Book XI. On the battlefield, Camilla is a force to be reckoned with. Then she notices a man wearing particularly fancy armor and forgets herself. Remember that one aspect of godliness is that one passesgods, country and family before self, and Camilla abandons her companions in order to find this man and win a trophy to show off her talent and glory. Thus, “Camilla, eager to fix Trojan weapons on the wall of a temple or to make golden spoils while hunting… she stalked him wildly, recklessly through the ranks, inflamed by the thirst for booty and plunder of 'a woman', lost track of what was happening around her, and inadvertently allowed Arruns to throw his spear, blessed by Apollo, which impaled and killed her (Virgil 11.914-918). This is by far one of the quickest examples of inattention to remaining virtuous to gain the upper hand on one of Virgil's characters. Shortly earlier in the same battle, Turnus puts Camilla in a position of power while he sets up a strategic ambush; when she forgets it, with her fellow Volscians and the Latins alongside whom she fights, she leaves herself vulnerable to attack. However, not everyone in the epic succumbs to the unholy fury. Aeneas remains relatively unscathed by the tragic circumstances that befall those who let fury take over their minds. Aeneas' epithet "pious" is quite revealing: he is considered the quintessential image of piety in a ruler. As previously mentioned, Virgil may have written this epic as a form of political propaganda in which he drew parallels between the pious Aeneas and the emperor Augustus. According to Sabine Grebe, “Virgil celebrates and, above all, legitimizes the power of Augustus” (Grebe 35). The epic hero and current ruler fought wars to legitimize their claims to the country they ruled, Aeneas against the Latins and Augustus against Caesar and Mark Antony. Both men were trusted as leaders “capable of creating order out of disorder, with divine support” (Grebe 39). Virgil takes this connection even further, even including references to Augustus' “divi genus” or his divine connection with Julius Caesar. as his rightful heir in Anchises' prophecy in Book VI (Grebe 58). If Augustus is truly of divine lineage, connected to Venus through Julius Caesar and Aeneas himself, as he is supposed to be in the text of the epic, this fact would fully legitimize his claim to rule the Roman Empire. If Augustus is the mirror of the fictional Aeneas, he must also share Aeneas' famous piety, right? This is the idea behind Virgil's poetry. Aeneas faces many obstacles during this epic poem, including his evacuation from Troy, the journey to Italy, and the deaths of his father and Pallas. Even though these events anger Aeneas, he is still able to control himself and does not give in to his rage, nor does he forget his piety, his duties, or his purpose. He even proposed a twelve-day truce to the Latins so that they could properly bury their dead after hearing the news of Pallas' death, a respectful gesture that impressed even the emissaries of his enemies. This fact is important, especially with regard to Roman Epirus. If the ruler of a powerful people wants to conquer a nation and add it to his empire, as the Romans did at that time, its leader must possess the qualities that would enable his vanquished enemies to respect a new ruler. the encounter with true fury occurs when Turnus is injured during their one-on-one fight. Aeneas spots Turnus carrying Pallas' girdle as a trophy, and "Aeneas, as soon as his eyes drank this spoil - a memory of his own wild sorrow - blazing with fury, terrible in his rage", kills Turnus in the name of his late friend , “flaming with anger” (Virgil 12.1102-1109). This wave of fury caught Aeneas as he felt a moment of pity, and the scene raises the question of ».