Aeneid 4-6 Study Questions

Identify: univira, Anna, Iarbas, Cytherea, Mercury,  Bacchante, Elissa, Pentheus, Orestes, Mnestheus, Sergestus, Cloanthus, Gyas, Nisus, Euryalus, Cumaean Sibyl, Avernus, Misenus, Proserpina, Charon, Cerberus, Deiphobus, Tisiphone, Lethe, Romulus, Caesar, Marcellus.

Book 4

  1. What images are associated with Dido's passion?

  2. What is Dido's position in the politics of Africa?

  3. What effect does her love have on the progress of her city?

  4. Venus and Juno have very different goals. What are they? Why do they agree to work together?

  5. What sort of wedding does Dido have? How does her perspective differ from the narrator's?

  6. What is Rumour's role in the action of  Book 4?

  7. What is Iarbas' complaint?

  8. What is Aeneas doing and how is he dressed when Mercury arrives? What does this suggest?

  9. What is Mercury's message to Aeneas from Jupiter?

  10. What Homeric antecedents are there for this episode?

  11. What has Dido lost?

  12. How does Aeneas respond to Dido's anguish?

  13. Are Dido's accusations against Aeneas justified?

  14. Do Dido and Aeneas resemble historical characters from Virgil's time?

  15. What are Dido's last speeches before she dies? What events do they foretell?

Book 5

  1. Why is Aeneas happy to be blown off-course to Sicily?

  2. How will he honour his dead father there? How does this evoke Homeric epic?

  3. What are the differences to be seen in these funeral games and those of the Iliad?

  4. What values are reflected in the account of the ship race?

  5. Who is the 'royal boy' of line 327?

  6. How does Euryalus win the foot race?

  7. Why do the women set fire to the ships?

  8. What plan is made as a result of the lost ships?

  9. What is the significance of the loss of Palinurus?

Book 6

  1. What myth is referred to in the ecphrasis of lines 30ff?

  2. What mythological examples does Aeneas use in persuading the Sibyl to tell him how to descend to the underworld?

  3. What two things must Aeneas do before he can gain entrance to the Underworld?

  4. In his description of the Underworld, what elements does Virgil take from Homer and which ones are different? Can you suggest a reason for the differences?

  5. Why is Charon unwilling to ferry a hero across the waters?

  6. List the different regions of the Underworld.

  7. Who is the Homeric model for Dido in the Underworld?

  8. How do Agamemnon and his companions react to the sight of Aeneas?

  9. Who is the 'Laconian woman' of line 687? What portrait is given of her here?

  10. For the Aeneid, what are the implications of the scene of reincarnation?

  11. How do the revelations of Anchises affect Aeneas?

  12. What does Anchises say about Caesar Augustus?

  13. What is the activity in which Rome excels above all others?

  14. Why does Aeneas exit through the gate of false dreams?