Wounded Aeneas: painting from the House of Siricus at Pompeii (between AD 62 and 79). closely based on a passage in Latin
poetry (Virgil, Aeneid, 12. 383-416). All the main motifs (Aeneas leaning on a tall spear, his son weeping beside him, the doctor
trying to operate with a forceps. Venus descending with a sprig of healing dittany) occur in Virgil's description of this episode in
the final battle between Aeneas and Turnus.
It would be superficial to regard the Aeneid as anti-imperialist or anti-Augustan. The message of the poem is that the domination
of Rome over the world is willed by heaven, and that it will impose peace and civilization (mos, ius). Virgil devises a series of
forward perspectives through history, to make this vision real. In Book 1 Jupiter reveals to Venus the plans of Fate: a Roman
Empire without limits in time or space, and Augustus as its climax, a future god. In Book 6 Aeneas' dead father shows him the
spirits of the unborn Romans of the future, who will conquer the world and, renouncing to the Greeks the fine arts, practise the arts
of rule, putting down the proud and sparing the conquered. At the end of Book 8 Aeneas is brought a marvelous shield, the work of
Vulcan, on which are depicted the wars of Rome, with the battle of Actium in the centre (brilliantly represented as a tableau, not a
narrative) And in Book 12 Juno at last abandons her hostility to Rome, and she and Jupiter agree that the Italians, far from being
simply defeated by the Trojans, shall contribute the native Italian toughness and valour to form the unique essence of
Rome-'Italian hardihood shall make Rome great: