Thank you to Miryam and the others who responded to my question
about Aeneas' leadership -- and my attempt to get a discussion going. I
will have to get down to a university library to check out the article by
Nisbet.
Expanding on what I have already said, Aeneas' leadership seems
to me to be an important aspect of the whole poem. But on second thought
maybe leadership is not a good word to use. What I am getting at is the
relationship between Aeneas and those who follow him.
I am not sure the Aeneid reflects what a Roman leader should be
like. Aeneas' leadership / relationship is not authoritarian; it is not
democratic; it is not charismatic. So what is it? It seems to be almost
fatalistic. The people are bound to him. His destiny is their destiny but
his destiny is caught up with the gods, e.g., Juno.
The beginning of the old literal interlinear translation of the
Aeneid by Hart and Osborne has always struck me as insightful. "Profugus
fato" is translated as "driven by fate" (note that Hart/Osborne change
the order of the Latin); I am putting the emphasis on their "driven."
Again, what is Virgil trying to communicate? I have always been
struck by a paraphrase of the Tao Te Ching by John Heider entitled, "The
Tao of Leadership." Hands down I think it is one of the best books on
leadership and management. I have used it for the past ten years. Aeneas
seems to reflect almost something "Taoist" in his leadership and his way
of dealing with reality. I see hints of this too at the end of Mario A.
Di Cesare's book, "The Altar and the City: A Reading of Virgil's Aeneid."
Di Cesare says that Aeneas -- using a Christian frame -- finds his life
by losing it. Indeed there is a Christian saying from the old Keswick
movement that parallels the Tao Te Ching, "let go and let God." Maybe
too, if I am at all correct, this is why Christians latched on to the
Aeneid as almost a Christian poem.
What am I saying? Aeneas let go! In letting go he found his
future and the future of his people.
James C. Wiersum
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