Divine Intervention in Virgil’s Aeneid: Gods’ Influence
Divine Intervention in Virgil’s *Aeneid*
The gods play a detrimental role in the narrative of the epic. Following the Homeric tradition, Vergil, like his characters, is compelled to introduce the gods into the story. In light of the role of the gods in the story, it would seem that, for the most part, their influence is quite negative. Also, like the Homeric gods, Virgil’s gods are very anthropomorphically generated. In other words, the author projects unto them perhaps the most human characteristics; their actions often reflect humanity’s least impressive qualities.
Juno’s Wrath and Neptune’s Intervention
Book 1 opens with Juno’s wrath against our hero, Aeneas. Harboring her resentment against Troy, Juno, right from the start, persecutes the innocent Aeneas, who is not personally responsible for her grudges. Despite being queen of the gods, she lowers herself to behavior below her divine dignity. She petitions a minor deity, Aeolus, god of the winds, to churn up a storm against the migrant Trojans. Pressured by her position as wife and sister of Zeus, he obeys and releases all his winds upon the innocent and vulnerable Trojans. The ensuing storm almost destroys these seafarers, were it not for the observation of Neptune, who realizes his dominion of the sea was being assaulted by some minor deity. Fortunately for the Trojans, death is averted by his powers. However, he did not do this out of the goodness of his heart. It was done for the sake of his ego.
Venus’s Aid to Aeneas
Unlike the vindictiveness of Juno, the Trojans soon experience a different aspect of divine intervention. Aeneas’s mother, Venus, dressed like Artemis, appears to her son and helps him find the passage to Carthage. This is done for the love of her son.
The Fall of Troy: Divine Partisanship
Book 2 is perhaps one of the most significant in its depiction of the role of the gods in human affairs. In Aeneas’s lengthy account of the fall of Troy, the gods are depicted as highly partisan because the Trojans did not stand a chance. Nearly all the divinities abandon Troy to the deceptive methods of the Greeks. After Laocoön strikes the wooden horse with a spear since he correctly believes that it contains Greek soldiers, twin snakes are sent from Tenedos to devour him and his children. After eating them, the snakes take refuge in Athena’s shrine, indicating that it was she who sent them. So, if Laocoön had not discovered the deception of the Trojan horse, Troy would not have fallen.
Divine Responsibility for the Trojan War
More evidence of the divine alliance against Troy is revealed as Aeneas discovers Helen hiding in the sanctuary. As he is about to kill her, his mother appears in her full divinity to dissuade him from murder. Perhaps what follows is one of literature’s most interesting passages on the topic of divine intervention. She wanted him to know that humanity was a victim of divine intervention and that no human, including Helen, was responsible for the Trojan War, including the Greeks. There is no other passage in literature where the author uses one god to point the finger at all the other gods, accusing them of being biased.
Dido’s Fate: A Tool of Divine Will
The cruelty of the gods is highlighted in great detail in the treatment of the story of Dido’s love for Aeneas. Book 4 illustrates how heartlessly our heroine, Dido, is abused for the divine will of Juno, as a tool of distortion so that Aeneas may not achieve his destiny.
Aeneas’s Destiny and the Golden Bough
Book 6 is not as significant as earlier books in the depiction of divine intervention. Nevertheless, it does show that without divine intervention, since without Venus’s guidance, Aeneas would not have found the golden bough in the woods and therefore not fulfilled his destiny.
Conclusion: A Critical View of Divine Intervention
To conclude, Virgil’s depiction of divine intervention and the role of the gods is more critical than positive as to how the gods treat humans. Perhaps the only positive use of the role of a god is by Venus, who helps her son Aeneas throughout the book reach his destiny.