e.All of these necessities pull at Aeneas' character and prevent Virgil from creating him for his own sake. Of course, the Trojan is successful because he gives himself up to these other obligations, while those who resist the will of the gods--Dido, Turnus-- die sad deaths. However, in their failure they are in fact the most interesting and attractive characters in the poem. This is not to say that the character of Aeneas is dull; in fact, one of Virgil's greatest innovations is the way he uses the stronger secondary characters to slowly develop his hero. Generally, secondary characters serve as foils to the protagonist; in the Aeneid, the protagonist is himself the foil, but he does not fail to gain from the passionate love and hatred of Dido, or the violent anger of Turnus. This means of developing the main character was greatly improved by Dante and Shakespeare; and yet their debt is to Virgil. This is why the Roman poet was at the center of a classical Western education for over a millennium, and today is still considered the greatest writer in Latin....
