8 /24 TO BHMA The Greek Australian VEMA JUNE 2010

Christian Readings in Classical Literature

If We Could Be Heroes: Comparing Homer’s Iliad and Virgil’s Aeneid from a Christian Perspective, Part 2
By Mario Baghos
“We too, if we are wise, shall take from
this literature whatever is suitable for us
and is allied to the truth, and shall pass
over the rest.”1
- St Basil the Great
In my last article, we discussed the fact
that Homer’s Iliad contained motifs which
can benefit us if interpreted with discern-
ment. Our interpretation was centred on
the main character of the tale, prince
Achilles. In our present article, we will be
analysing the Aeneid, an epic poem com-
posed by the Roman author Virgil (70BC-
19BC) in the latter half of the first century
BC during the reign of the emperor Augus-
tus (63BC-14AD). The Aeneid follows the
exploits of prince Aeneas of Troy, son of
Venus (the Roman equivalent of Aphrodite),
who manages to escape the city after it is
conquered by the Greeks. This article will
contrast the manner in which both Aeneas
and Achilles are portrayed by Virgil and
Homer respectively before putting forward
an alternative to pagan heroism that can
be found in the lives of saints of the
church.
With the Aeneid, Virgil attempted to au-
thenticate the growing worldview of the
Augustan age to which he belonged; a
worldview which deified the emperor and
placed him at the centre of an ever ex-
panding Roman empire. He did this by giv-
ing some grounding to the contemporary
circumstances under Augustus, embarking
on the composition of a myth set in the
past which predicted the ascent of the Au-
gustan regime. The Aeneid attempts to
achieve this by ‘predicting’ that Rome is
destined to rise from the descendants of
Aeneas, whose perilous journey to found a
city for his displaced people comprises
much of the narrative.
Aeneas flees burning Troy, by Federico Barocci, 1598
sophical thought that is more or less ab-
sent from Homer’s epic. Indeed, it is the
philosophical principles of Stoicism, found-
ed by Zeno of Citium in Cyprus (334-
262BC) but later appropriated by Roman
thinkers such as Cicero (106-43BC), that
are employed by Virgil throughout the epic,
especially in his description of Aeneas’
temperament.
The Stoics believed that in order to live
in accordance with nature human beings
needed to practice asceticism, which, for
them, was associated with the practice of
logic, reflection and contemplation. These
exercises were conducive towards the
much sought-after state of apatheia
(aπάθεια), which, far from corresponding
to the contemporary word ‘apathy,’ instead
denotes a freedom from subversive emo-
tions leading to a state of dispassion.
for his people, Dido’s profound love for
him turns into an even more emphatic sad-
ness that leads to an uncontrollable rage.
After dramatically appealing to Aeneas to
stay, she sends her sister Anna to plead
with him time and time again on her be-
half, and the text goes on to read:
But no griefs moved Aeneas. He
heard but did not heed her words.
The Fates forbade it and God
blocked his ears to all appeals.
Just as the north winds off the
Alps vie with one another to up-
root the mighty oak whose timber
has hardened over long years of
life, blowing upon it from this side
and from that and howling
through it; the trunk feels the
shock and the foliage from its
head covers the ground, but it
holds onto the rocks with roots
plunged as deep into the world
below as its crown soars towards
the winds of heaven - just so the
hero Aeneas was buffeted by all
this pleading on this side and that,
and felt the pain in his mighty
heart but his mind remained un
moved and the tears rolled in
vain.3
In this beautiful simile, Aeneas is depicted
as unswayed as a tree which is battered
by the howling winds that attempt to up-
root it; his resolve is steadfast, his disposi-
tion unaffected. But this ‘disaffection’ is not
tantamount to the modern concept of apa-
thy. He feels compassion, “the pain in his
mighty heart.”4 However, despite the pas-

Indeed, the work contains many of the
themes we discussed in part one of this
article; the vicissitudes of the gods, the un-
alterable rhythms of fate, and the in-
evitability of Hades for the deceased.2 All
of these striking beliefs were just as much
a part of the Virgil’s immediate historical
context as they were Homer’s. The pas-
sage of time between the composition of
the former and the latter, however, was
marked by the emergence of Greek philo-
In book IV, Aeneas is portrayed as hav-
ing reached some level of Stoic dispassion
or apatheia when, through the workings of
fate and the behest of the gods, he is com-
pelled to leave the illustrious queen Dido of
Carthage whom he had temporarily mar-
ried as a result of a love spell hatched by
the god Cupid (Eros), son of Venus and
Mars (Ares, the god of war). With the
prospect of Aeneas leaving Carthage and
continuing his journey to found a new city

ΕΛΛΗΝΑΣ ΥΔΡΑΥΛΙΚΟΣ

SPECIALISING IN
- HOT & COLD WATER
- EXTENSIONS RENOVATIONS
- BLOCKED DRAINS, TOILETS
- LEAKY TAPS, PIPES
- GAS, REPAIRS, MAINTENANCE
JUNE 2010
Cont. from previous page
sionate behaviour which Dido directs
towards him, Aeneas remains unmoved.
Aeneas can here be contrasted to Achilles,
whose anger, as discussed in part 1 of this
article, precipitates the downfall both of his
comrades and of the city of Troy. Indeed,
from a Christian perspective, the fomenting
of internal passions (coming from the Latin
passio, in Greek pathos) - which are the
pernicious thoughts originating in either the
cultivation of bad habits or demonic temp-
tation - can lead to subversive behaviour.
Dido, unable to control her feelings for
Aeneas, becomes enslaved by them; and
as these emotions evolve from love to
anger and thence to despair and suicide,
they begin to threaten those around her. As
in the case of Achilles, whose rage is indis-
criminately imputed to those around him,
Dido’s internal sadness and rage is pro-
jected externally onto Aeneas and even
onto her very own sister, who she unwit-
tingly solicits for help in ending her own
life. Aeneas, whilst empathising with her, is
rational enough to continue what he
believes is a divinely ordained mission to
Italy.
At a glance, the temperaments of Aeneas
and Achilles seem to be diametrically
opposed to one another. The former is
able to resist the adversity directed to him
from ‘without,’ from Dido’s madness. The
latter, to give just one example, becomes
consigned to the rage that erupted within
him upon hearing of the death of Patroclus.
Despite this, at the end of both the Iliad and
the Aeneid a different portrait of each main
character emerges. Achilles, for all of his
wrath and in the midst of the turmoil
caused by his exaction of revenge against
prince Hector of Troy, the slayer of
Patroclus, behaves quite uncharacteristical-
ly. Upon discovering that king Priam had
surreptitiously entered the Greek camp in
order to retrieve the exposed and mutilat-
ed corpse of his son Hector, instead of
killing Priam and thereby ending the whole
debacle, Achilles actually takes pity on him,
giving the body of Hector back to Priam
and, in a show of magnanimity, suspending
the war for the eleven days needed by the
Trojans to prepare and complete the peri-
od of mourning and subsequent funerary
rites for their slain prince.5
So, irrespective of his violent temper,
Achilles emerges as a character capable of
at least some measure of compassion.
This is not the case, however, with Aeneas.
Towards the end of the narrative, the
Trojan seems to morph into the enraged
Achilles that marauds through most of the
Iliad. Exacting revenge for the death of his
comrade Pallas who was killed at the
hands of his nemesis Turnus, Aeneas’
actions point to a radical ‘devolution’ in his
disposition. The final verses of the narra-
tive reflect this. In them, the defeated
Turnus makes a plea to Aeneas to spare
his life as the Trojan lurches over him.
Initially, Aeneas is in fact moved by Turnus’
pleas, that is, until he spots Pallas’ baldric
or belt hanging over his enemy’s shoulder.
With the resurgence of the memory of his
friend’s murder at the hands of his enemy,
the work reads that Aeneas, “burning with
mad passion and terrible in his wrath,”6
declares that he now stands in the place of
Pallas as he kills the defenceless Turnus,
whose life flees “in anger down into the
shades.”7
It is clear therefore that Aeneas regress-
es from the Stoic descriptions employed
The Greek Australian VEMA
earlier in the narrative into a man ensnared
by his own wrath; something which
Achilles was able to overcome, at least
momentarily, when he granted Priam the
body of his son and the eleven day
amnesty from battle. But, despite their
capacity for some goodness, both heroes
are nevertheless motivated and somehow
consumed by a single overwhelming fac-
tor, and this is the passionate hatred which
afflicts them at various times. Hence,
although both Achilles and Aeneas are suc-
cessful in their various campaigns in an
external sense, internally they are torment-
ed by rage.
In the Church, we find a corrective to
these passions as manifested in the lives
of Christian ascetics who forsake all exter-
nal forms of earthly glory, whether brought
about by conquest or otherwise. The
pagan heroes, on account of the gloomy
and unpredictable nature of the afterlife,
sought glory in the here-and-now, often
through violent conquest. Christians, how-
ever, consider earthly glory to be superfi-
cial, especially when considered in light of
(or, if acquired at the expense of others, as
an impediment) to heavenly glory to which
we can attain both here and in the here-
after.
In order to achieve glory therefore, the
Christian must turn inwardly to wage war
against the passions so that he or she may
become recipients of the divine grace to
which all human beings are providentially
called. In Christian spirituality, the ascetic
gradually abandons himself to the will and
mercy of Jesus Christ, a process which
involves an internal warfare with the errat-
ic passions that, for whatever reason, have
anchored themselves in him or her. This
spiritual warfare is remarkably illustrated
in the lives of the desert fathers, those
champions of the faith who exiled them-
selves into the chaotic Egyptian desert so
as to master the chaos within themselves
and thereby participate in the divine life.
But the struggles of these great fathers and
mothers denote the fact that this endeav-
our is impossible according to one’s own
devices because of, on the one hand,
humanity’s own creaturely weakness, and,
on the other, the snares of the devil. It is
only by responding to God’s initiative and
TO BHMA 9 /25
and the devil. This participation in Christ’s
victory, which is transformative and deify-
ing, renders all ‘victories’ of a militaristic
sense invalid; they become nothing other
than senselessly violent hallmarks in the
continuous cycle of human suffering, a suf-
fering that consumes both the aggressor
and the aggressed, the victor and his
defeated foe - as pertinently manifested by
the tumultuous rage that carries both
Achilles and Aeneas from one battle to the
next. The Christian, therefore, is called to
emulate the saints who have permitted
Christ to conquer them. Indeed, each and
every human person is called to this
authentic form of heroism; to struggle, not
against his or her neighbour, but against
the internal passions with the assistance of
Jesus Christ. And the spoils of this journey
towards a ‘saintly heroism’ are nothing
other than participation in Christ’s ultimate
victory over death wrought by his resur-
rection from the dead. But this journey,
Bust of Virgil located outside unlike the paradoxically autonomous yet
his tomb in Naples, Italy fatalistic paths carved out by the heroes of
old, requires a different set of criteria; it
must be framed by prayer, love, humility
and guidance.
power that a Christian may begin the jour- *Associate Teacher in Early Byzantine History
ney towards the conquest of the base St Andrew’s Greek Orthodox Theological College.
thoughts and emotions that assail all
human beings, gradually realising within
themselves the absolute freedom from
passion - the state of apatheia - which can 1
Taken from the forthcoming publication by St
only be achieved in Christ. Andrew’s Orthodox Press, St Basil the Great’s
Address to Youth: On How they might benefit
from Classical Greek Literature.
Reaching the end of the present article, 2
With the notable exception of the Elysian
we are made aware of the fact that, Fields, that precinct of the underworld which is
despite their entertaining exploits, the reserved exclusively for heroes.
saints of the Church have acquired a 3
David West, trans. Virgil: The Aeneid, Revised Edition
(England: Penguin Books, 2003), 81-82. Although the
greater victory than the pagan heroes. Aeneid is an epic poem written in Latin, this version,
Instead of seeking external conquest and based on precedents established by many other schol-
glory, these men and women, the saints of ars, has taken the liberty of translating it into English
the Church, sought to be conquered by the prose.
4
Ibid.
God-man Jesus Christ. In this way, the vic- 5
Cf. Robert Fitzgerald, trans. Homer: The Iliad (Oxford:
tories achieved by the saints are perma- Oxford University Press, 1998), 421, 424-425, 439-443.
nent because they consist in a participation 6
West, trans. Virgil: The Aeneid, 290.
in Christ’s perennial victory over sin, death, 7
Ibid.
NEW FROM ST ANDREW'S
ORTHODOX PRESS
CD-BOOK: LEARNING GREEK ORTHODOX HYMNS
A great new tool to learn the exact words and meaning of the most popular
hymns of the Orthodox Church.
Why use it? Because Orthodox hymns express the depth of Christian faith
in musical form. They are worth knowing by heart!
This 100-page book contains the inspired words of 40
major hymns with accompanying CD in Greek by Basilios
Psilacos, lecturer in Byzantine Music at St Andrew's
Greek Orthodox Theological College and Chanter at
St Andrew's Parish, Gladesville.
Hymns of the Resurrection, the 12 Major Feast Days, the
Patron Saints of Day Schools in Australia and segments
of various Services, are all included in the book's three
categories:
1. Greek lyrics 1. Greek lyrics
2. English translation 2. English translation
3. Transliteration 3. Transliteration
'I am certain that, among the faithful, there will be many interested listeners
who will benefit from this devoted effort of our beloved co-worker'
- Archbishop Stylianos of Australia
To order, go to: www.standrewsorthodoxpress.com.au