Featured Episode - In Search of Aeneas Redux: Following the Trojan Refugee
Issue 51
In This Episode
In this episode, guest author, Anthony Adolph returns to discuss his latest research and publication, In Search of Aeneas: Classical Myth or Bronze Age Hero? Who was Aeneas? What did his world look like? What is his tale and how did it evolve? What did Aeneas mean to both the Greeks and Romans? We discuss this and so much more.
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Glossary
Aeneas - A Trojan hero and the son of the Trojan prince Anchises and the Greek goddess Aphrodite (the Roman Venus).
Aeneid - A Latin epic poem written by Virgil in the second half of the first century BCE. It tells the tale of the legendary Aeneas fleeing Troy and traveling to Italy.
Augustus - The first Roman Emperor who reigned from 27 BCE to the time of his death in 14 CE.
Bronze Age - Defines a historic period dated to approximately between 3300 BCE and 1200 BC. It is characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization.
Brutus of Troy - A legendary descendent of Aeneas, known in Medieval British literature and history. He is the eponymous founder and first king of Britain.
Carthage - Originally a Phoenician colony, Carthage began as an important trading hub located in the Western Mediterranean and eventually rose as a great power, extending their empire into Europe (between the 7th and 3rd centuries BCE).
Etruria - A region once located in central Italy and what is Tuscany today.
Etruscans - An ancient civilization inhabiting ancient Etruria as early as 900 BCE. They were highly cultured and spoke a unique Etruscan language still largely undeciphered today. The Etruscans were competing with the Greeks and later Carthaginians for control over the Tyrrhenian region and until they were eventually absorbed into the Roman empire.
Homer - An ancient Greek poet, living in the late 8th or early 7th centuries BCE. He is credited for authoring both the Iliad and the Odyssey.
Julius Caesar - Gaius Julius Caesar (100 - 44 BC) was both a Roman general and a statesman. He eventually became dictator of Rome in 49 BC until his assassination in 44 BC.
Jupiter - The Roman father of the gods, a god of thunder (Greek Zeus).
Mars - The Roman god of War (Greek Ares).
Pompeii - An ancient Roman town located in the Campania region of Italy. It was buried under volcanic ash and pumice during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE.
Romulus - The mythical hero and founder of both the city of Rome and the Roman people.
Venus - The Roman goddess of love and fertility (Greek Aphrodite).
Virgil - An ancient Roman poet (70 - 19 BCE) who is best known for his Latin works: the Eclogues (or Bucolics), the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid.
Recommended Books
In Search of Aeneas: Classical Myth or Bronze Age Hero?
By Anthony Adolph
Aeneas is one of the most prominent heroes who fought at Troy, as told in Homer’s Iliad, and he is the subject of Virgil’s Aeneid, works that lie at the heart of western civilization. Historian Anthony Adolph reports and analyzes all the Greek and Roman myths about Aeneas to create the biography of a character who, though heavily fictionalized, may well have been a real person after all.
Anthony Adolph takes the reader in Aeneas’s footsteps, across the Mediterranean from Troy to Rome. He cuts through the complexities of the Iliad and Aeneid and explains the ideas and theories about Aeneas in straightforward terms. By rooting the myths in real places, this book makes them more approachable, especially for newcomers to the story. Rather than be daunted by Aeneas as a semi-divine, mythological figure, Adolph has approached him as he would any interesting ancestor, seeking to understand him in the context of his family and the era, and builds on the growing academic view that the core of the Iliad is based in real events.
