The Aeneid: Fate of Aeneas and Juno's Opposition

Virgil is considered the most renowned Latin poet, according to the work “Divine Intervention, Supremacy of Fate in The Aeneid.” He is the writer of the epic poem The Aeneid. Virgil’s epic is a continuation of Homer’s The Iliad. The Aeneid is very much like The Iliad. In The Iliad, the men and gods are a driving power of the Trojan War, as are the men and gods a driving power of Aeneas’s journey in The Aeneid, but there is a stronger power driving Aeneas on his journey. It is the same power to which the characters of The Iliad are subject, and that is the power of fate. In The Aeneid the men and gods draw the battle lines. Some want Aeneas to succeed on his journey to Latium. Others want him to fail. Still other characters are just on the side that is beneficial for them. According to Wildman, the main character who opposes the protagonist, Aeneas, is the goddess Juno (26). The characters’ interventions only move the epic to its end, but fate has the final word (“Divine” 1). This paper will discuss how the fate of Aeneas always thwarts Juno’s opposition. According to “The Function of the Gods in Virgil’s Aeneid” by Woodworth, the main plot of The Aeneid is outlined in the first verses of the poem (114). In the beginning of Virgil’s Aeneid it is written, “I sing of warfare and a man at war. From the sea-coast of Troy by destiny, to our Lavinian shore, a fugitive, this captain… (1).” This quote is talking about Aeneas’s destiny to journey to the shores of Rome (Woodworth 114). Virgil continues, “By blows from powers of the air—behind them baleful Juno in her sleepless rage (Aeneid 1).” This states that the secondary plot, or the “superplot,” is Juno’s effort to stop Aeneas’s fate of arriving at the shore of Rome (Woodworth 114). Therefore, Juno’s hatred of Aeneas and her opposition to his destiny is made clear in this quote that follows the opening quote that states the main plot of the epic poem (Woodworth 114).
Coleman comments that throughout the epic poem,