notions and make his Achilles “swift of foot,” his Agamemnon “king of men,” and his Odysseus “of many wiles,” Vergilius was bound by no such obligations. He could find his characters where he chose and shape them to suit his own purpose. His Aeneas owes something to Homeric precedent in being a great warrior and a devout servant of the gods, but he has taken on a new personality and is the legitimate child of Vergilius’ brooding meditation and imaginative vision. The persons of the Aeneid are created and fashioned for a special purpose. They contribute to the main design, and everything that they say or do may be considered in the light of Rome’s destiny. For this very reason, we will be wrong to treat them as if they were dramatic characters of Homer. They are more, and they are less. They are more, because they stand for something outside themselves, for something typically and essentially Roman; they are types, examples, symbols. Moreover, they are less, because any typical character will lack the lineaments and idiosyncracities, the personal appeal and the intimate claims, of a character that is created for his sake and for the poet’s pleasure in him. Furthermore, because Aeneas is typical of Rome, the events through which he passes are equally so. He represents what may happen to any Roman. He behaves as a Roman would in conditions familiar to Roman experience. Therefore, though the action takes place in a historical past, it transcends history in a way that the Trojan War does not for Homer. The Aeneid special claim is that it typifies a class of actions and situations in which great questions are raised and great issues are at stake. That is partly why Vergilius tells a story less well than Homer. His task prevents him from really enjoying a tale for its own sake. Beyond the actual events there is always something else, a problem or a principle that what occur...
