Book 7 summary Flashcards
(12 cards)
What is the significance of Aeneas’ journey in this chapter?
- Aeneas sails along the Italian coast to the mouth of the Tiber, marking his arrival in Latium and the beginning of his destiny to found a new city
How does Virgil signal the start of the epic’s second part?
- Virgil invokes the Muse again to introduce the new phase of the epic,
- emphasizing the unfolding destiny in Latium and the challenges ahead
What prophecy influences King Latinus’ decisions regarding his daughter Lavinia?
- An oracle foretells that Lavinia is destined to marry a foreigner whose descendants will rule the world,
- prompting Latinus to favor an alliance with Aeneas
How does King Latinus respond to Aeneas and his emissaries?
- Latinus welcomes Aeneas’ ambassadors hospitably,
- recognizing him as the prophesied foreign husband for Lavinia
- offering an alliance that includes marriage
What role does the divine intervention of Juno play in these events?
- Juno, upset by Aeneas’ safe arrival,
- sends the Fury Allecto to stir up discord by inciting Queen Amata and Turnus against the Trojans
How does Allecto manipulate the native forces in Latium?
- Allecto first inflames Queen Amata’s anger, then incites Turnus
- who is already a prominent warrior
- to oppose the Trojan influence by rallying the Latins to war
What light-hearted incident among the Trojans is mentioned in the summaries?
While on the coast, Aeneas and his captains eat a meal on the beach and end up consuming their bread-tables—a humorous nod to fulfilling the Harpies’ curse in a less dire manner
What event escalates tensions and contributes to the outbreak of conflict in Latium?.
- An altercation involving Ascanius, who accidentally kills a favored stag of Latinus’s herdsman,
- sparks a skirmish that further stokes the anger of the local shepherds and the court, pushing Latinus toward war
What internal conflict does King Latinus face in this chapter?
- Although Latinus is reluctant to engage in battle,
- the combined pressures of prophecy,
- divine will,
- and the clamor of his court and Queen Amata
- eventually force him to retreat and let events unfold
Who are the main military figures introduced as the conflict with the Trojans looms?
- Alongside Turnus—rallied by divine incitement—
- the Italian leaders and warriors, including the renowned Amazonian figure Camilla of the Volsci,
- are introduced as key figures in the impending conflict
Whaat is the essential problem of the second half of the epic
- Does he prevail by clemency, by negotiation or by violence?
- eeking to define what kind of behaviour seems appropriate for the prototype of a ruler of the Roman Empire.
- Virgil’s essential problem was to try to define the best way of countering violence and sets out to show Aeneas fighting only because he must, aiming to end it as mercifully as possible and establish a lasting peace
Whatever defence may be constructed in favour of Turnus, he is portrayed as too…
ready to leap to arms and too fond of fighting
