The epic starts with Aeneas and his Trojans on their sea-journey to the West. The poet opens with a weighty introduction:
Arms and the man I sing, who, forced by Fate
And haughty Juno's unrelenting hate,
Expelled and exiled, left the Trojan shore.
Long labours, both on land and sea, he bore ...(trans. Dryden).
The Building Of Lavinium. depicted in a painted frieze from a Roman tomb on the Esqmlme (mid first century B.C.). The frieze
showed episodes from the foundation legend of Rome and is of exceptional interest as testimony of the stock of stories available
when Virgil came to compose his Aeneid. The city goddess is seated at the centre.
A mighty warrior with a destined mission, the hero is persecuted by a hostile goddess: and more than that, he is 'famous for his
pietas', and even that quality- in English 'sense of duty', 'devotion'-does not protect him. Virgil goes on to remonstrate, shocked by
the theology of his own story:
O Muse! tell why the queen of heaven began
To persecute so brave, so just a man:
What grievance must his suffering assuage?
Can heavenly spirits feel such human rage?The hostility of Juno arises, we learn, from personal pique: Ganymede, Jupiter's paramour, and Pans, who judged the beauty
contest of the goddesses and gave the prize to Venus over Juno, were Trojans. But also she favours Carthage and hopes to frustrate
the plan of Jupiter and Fate to confer dominion on Rome.