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Sidney Brown
Paper 2: The Aeneid
Western Heritage 1
November 17, 2015
The gods play an important role in the society of the polytheistic, and shapes the
civilizations of the people in these societies. This is seen clearly in The Aeneid as the gods play
an important role in the lives of the individuals and the cities. People sacrifice to the gods for
various reasons, such as burials and for help in the difficulties in their lives, as well as in battles.
This is similar to the actions of the characters in The Iliad, for they sacrificed to the gods and
prayed to them for help and in the face of death. The Republic shows that in a functioning
society that is just, the gods are not important to the function of society, but rather the morals of
the people. In Ethics, Aristotle deals with relationships and happiness, and in this the necessity
of the gods is replaced by the thoughts of science – seeing as he is scientifically minded – and
therefore leaves this out. But in The Bible, a monotheistic society is presented, and while God
was present in the bible, and was relied on by the people, he didn’t serve just anyone. According
to what is read in the bible, God is all powerful, and even created everything in the universe, but
yet is selective of who is helped and who is not. This god is portrayed as being forgiving to
those who worship him/her, and being destructive toward others – even to the point where he
killed all but one family by flooding the earth. What the real question is, is which society
functions better? The answer can be found in reading the Aeneid, and comparing it to the other
authorships studied alongside it, and analyzing how each society and individual functions under
each view of the necessity of the god/gods. The societies in the Aeneid all seem to crumble, or be
flawed in function, and therefore prove to be unstable as opposed to the societies that have an
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absence of gods, and a society that worships only one god, and therefore proves that there is no
need for multiple gods in a functioning society.
The polytheistic views apparent in The Aeneid influence the way people in society act.
The characters rely on the gods for help in situations such as going to fighting. It is similar to
The Iliad in this way, for we see times that characters in this poem offer sacrifices to the gods in
order to do battle, such as when Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter so he could sail the seas to
do battle with Troy. “He endured the sacrifice of his daughter in support of a war waged for a
woman, first offering for the ships’ sake” (Aeschylus II, Page 28, Line 223). This quote tells of
what happened before the Achaeans departed for Troy in The Iliad, which is significant to
understanding the relation to the sacrifices made in The Aeneid. Agamemnon is forced to
sacrifice his daughter in order to sail into war. This quote relates to the Aeneid through the
