As a child, I was fascinated by Greek mythology and history, and made it my mission in elementary school to read as much as possible on the subject, including the exceptional stories and the pantheon of gods presented. I viewed them as fantastical, supernatural tales with capricious gods and brave heroes, and I never stopped to consider that the mythologies might be representative of the views and cultural habits of the Greeks, especially regarding roles of gender. One such depiction is Virgil's Aeneid, which contains depictions of women in positions of power and also characterizes these women as irrational, emotional to the point of hysteria, and, therefore, as unfit leaders. Historically, much information about the role of women has been disclosed. of Athens, where women were expected to center their lives around the oikos, or “house,” where a woman cooked, cared for servants, raised children, and performed other household tasks (Frost 1997). The first woman to irrationally transgress this role in the Aeneid is Helen, who is the object of Aeneas' wrath in Book II. Aeneas first describes Helen as "terrified of...her abandoned husband" and he feels a burning desire to "...avenge my fallen city and punish the whore Helen." He blames Helen for the fall of Troy, and the only reason Aeneas does not harm Helen is at the insistence of his mother, Venus, who reminds him that it is "the harsh will of the gods." ". (Damrosch and Pike, 2009) Another woman who was also negatively affected by the will of the gods was the lovely Dido, queen and founder of Carthage. At the arrival of Aeneas and the beginning of their love story, she is consumed by a love provoked by Cupid which was "... an inner fire that consumed her" and she...... in the middle of 'a paper.... ..1997), or creatures that are "...perpetually restless and constantly evolving" (Darmrosch and Pike, 2009). Women are not devoid of strength, as Virgil demonstrates in the Aeneid, for they are rulers of cities and goddesses, but also objects of passion and subjects of war, in the case of Helen. We can learn a lot about the nature of balance and tensions between ancient peoples from their literature, and see how they were characterized in the past, and how we can evaluate these characterizations from the perspective of a society which gradually evolves in our definitions. gender and how we address gender stereotypes and idealizations. Works Cited Damrosch, David and David Lawrence Pike. The Longman Anthology of World Literature. 2nd ed. Pearson Education, Inc., 2009. Print.Frost, Frank J. Greek Society. 5th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997. Print.