Virgil's The Aeneid

Question 1

Achaemenides

Answer 1

stranding and subsequent rescue by Aeneas’s fleet make him the only known member of Odysseus’s crew to survive the return journey to Ithaca

Question 2

Aeolus

Answer 2

ruler of the winds; In the Aeneid by Virgil, Juno offers Aeolus the nymph Deiopea as a wife if he will release his winds upon the fleet of Aeneas

Question 3

Alecto

Answer 3

In the Aeneid (Book 7), Alecto was demanded by Juno to not let the Trojans have their way with King Latinus by marriage or besiege Italian borders. Alecto’s mission is to wreak havoc on the Trojans and cause their downfall through war. In order to do this, Alecto takes over the body of Queen Amata who clamors for all of the Latin mothers to riot against the Trojans. She disguises herself as Juno’s priestess Calybe and appears to Turnus in a dream persuading him to begin the war against the Trojans. Met with a mocking response from Turnus, Alecto abandons persuasion and attacks Turnus with a serpent from her hair. Unsatisfied with her work in igniting the war, Alecto asks Juno if she can provoke more strife by drawing in bordering towns, but Juno replies that she will manage the rest of the war herself

Question 4

Amata

Answer 4

was the wife of King Latinus of the Latins. She and Latinus had a daughter, Lavinia, and no sons. When the hero Aeneas sued for Lavinia’s hand in marriage, Amata opposed him because she had already promised Lavinia to Aeneas’ nemesis Turnus; hung herself when Turnus died.

Question 5

Anchises

Answer 5

the elderly Anchises was carried from the burning city by his son Aeneas, accompanied by Aeneas’ wife Creusa, who died in the escape attempt, and small son Ascanius (the subject is depicted in several paintings, including a famous version by Federico Barocci in the Galleria Borghese in Rome). Anchises himself died and was buried in Sicily many years later. Aeneas later visited Hades and saw his father again in the Elysian Fields.

Question 6

Andromache

Answer 6

was the wife of Hector; Virgil. Aeneid III, 294–355

she sees Aeneas and advises his course to Italy

Question 7

Ascanius/Iulus

Answer 7

is a legendary king of Alba Longa and is the son of the Trojan hero Aeneas

Question 8

Augustus

Answer 8

was the founder of the Roman Empire and its first Emperor, ruling from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD

Question 9

Camilla

Answer 9

In the Aeneid, she helped her ally, King Turnus of the Rutuli, fight Aeneas and the Trojans in the war sparked by the courting of Princess Lavinia. Arruns, a Trojan ally, stalked Camilla on the battlefield, and, when she was opportunely distracted by her pursuit of Chloreus, killed her

Question 10

Creusa

Answer 10

Creusa, daughter of Priam and Hecuba, was the first wife of Aeneas and mother to Ascanius (also known as Iulus)

Question 11

Cumae

Answer 11

In Roman mythology, there is an entrance to the underworld located at Avernus, a crater lake near Cumae, and was the route Aeneas used to descend to the Underworld.

Question 12

Deiopeia

Answer 12

a nymph, follower of Cyrene, that Juno promised in marriage to Aeolus if he would unleash his winds against Aeneas

Question 13

Cacus

Answer 13

the monster took a liking to the cattle and slyly stole eight of them - four bulls and four cows - by dragging them by their tails, so as to leave a trail in the wrong direction.

According to Virgil in Book VIII of the Aeneid, Hercules grasped Cacus so tightly that Cacus’ eyes popped out and there was no blood left in his throat.

Question 14

Celaeno

Answer 14

Celaeno, one of the Harpies, whom Aeneas encountered at Strophades. She gave him prophecies of his coming journeys

Question 15

Dido

Answer 15

he founder and first Queen of Carthage; Dido and Aeneas fall in love by the management of Juno and Venus, acting in concert though for different reasons. When the rumour of the love affair comes to King Iarbas the Gaetulian, Iarbas prays to his father, blaming Dido who has scorned marriage with him yet now takes Aeneas into the country as her lord. Jupiter dispatches Mercury to send Aeneas on his way and the pious Aeneas sadly obeys. Mercury tells Aeneas of all the promising Italian lands and orders Aeneas to get his fleet ready.

In The Divine Comedy Dante sees the shade of Dido in the second circle of Hell, where she is condemned (on account of her consuming lust) to be blasted for eternity in a fierce whirlwind.

Question 16

Euryalus

Answer 16

In the Aeneid by Virgil, Nisus and Euryalus are ideal friends and lovers, who died during a raid on the Rutulians.

Question 17

Evander

Answer 17

Evander aids Aeneas in his war against Turnus and the Rutuli: the Arcadian had known the father of Aeneas, Anchises, before the Trojan War, and shares a common ancestry through Atlas with Aeneas’s family. Evander plays a major role in Aeneid Book XII.
Evander was deified after his death and an altar was constructed in his name on the Aventine Hill. His son Pallas apparently died childless, leaving the natives under Turnus to ravage his kingdom; however, the gens Fabia claimed descent from Evander.

Question 18

Hecuba

Answer 18

a queen in Greek mythology, the wife of King Priam of Troy during the Trojan War, with whom she had 19 children. These children included several major characters of Homer’s Iliad such as the warriors Hector and Paris and the prophetess Cassandra.

Question 19

Helenus

Answer 19

Helenus prophesied Aeneas’ founding of Rome when he and his followers stopped at Buthrotum, detailed by Virgil in Aeneid Book III.

Question 20

Janus

Answer 20

the god of beginnings and transitions, thence also of gates, doors, doorways, endings and time

symbolizes the start of the war between the Trojans and the Latins

Question 21

Juno

Answer 21

primary antagonistic force in Virgil’s Aeneid, where she is depicted as a cruel and savage goddess intent upon supporting first Dido and then Turnus and the Rutulians against Aeneas’ attempt to found a new Troy in Italy

patron of Carthage- she knows Rome will overtake Carthage and that’s why she hates him

Question 22

Juturna

Answer 22

a sister of Turnus and supported him against Aeneas by giving him his sword after he dropped it in battle, as well as taking him away from the battle when it seemed he would get killed

Question 23

Laocoon

Answer 23

Laocoön warned his fellow Trojans against the wooden horse presented to the city by the Greeks. In the Aeneid, Virgil gives Laocoön the famous line Equo ne credite, Teucri / Quidquid id est, timeo Danaos et dona ferentes, or “Do not trust the Horse, Trojans / Whatever it is, I fear the Greeks even bearing gifts.” This line is the source of the saying: “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.”

Question 24

Latinus

Answer 24

Latinus, or Lavinius, was a king of the Latins. He is sometimes described as the son of Faunus and Marica, and father of Lavinia with his wife, Amata

Question 25

Lavinia

Answer 25

Lavinia, the only child of the king and “ripe for marriage”, had been courted by many men in Ausonia who hoped to become the king of Latium. Turnus, ruler of the Rutuli, was the most likely of the suitors, having the favor of Queen Amata; Lavinia has what is perhaps her most, or only, memorable moment in Book 7 of the Aeneid, lines 69–83: during sacrifice at the altars of the gods, Lavinia’s hair catches on fire, an omen promising glorious days to come for Lavinia and war for all Latins.
Aeneas and Lavinia had one son, Silvius. Aeneas named the city Lavinium for her. According to an account by Livy, Ascanius was the son of Aeneas and Lavinia; and she ruled the Latins as a power behind the throne, for Ascanius was too young to rule.

Question 26

Megaera

Answer 26

one of the furies

Question 27

Nisus

Answer 27

Nisus and Euryalus’s killing spree through the camp of the Rutuli is one of Virgil’s most brutal descriptions of combat

Question 28

Pallas

Answer 28

Pallas was the son of King Evander. In Virgil’s Aeneid, Evander allows Pallas to fight against the Rutuli with Aeneas, who takes him and treats him like his own son Ascanius. In battle, Pallas proves he is a warrior, killing many Rutulians, and compared to the Rutulian Lausus, son of Mezentius. Tragically, however, Pallas is eventually killed by Turnus, who takes his sword-belt, which is decorated with the scene of the fifty slaughtered bridegrooms, as a spoil. Throughout the rest of Book X, Aeneas is filled with rage (furor) at the death of the youth, and he rushes through the Latin lines and mercilessly kills his way to Turnus. Turnus, however, is lured away by Juno so that he might be spared, and Aeneas kills Lausus, instead, which he instantly regrets.
Pallas’ body is carried on his shield back to Evander, who grieves at his loss. However, Pallas’ story does not stop there - at the end of Book XII, as Turnus is finally defeated and begs for his life, Aeneas almost spares him, but catches sight of Pallas’ baldric, Turnus’ fateful spoils. This drives Aeneas into another murderous rage, and the epic ends as he kills Turnus in revenge for Pallas’ death.

Question 29

Polydorus

Answer 29

King Priam’s youngest son; His death is also alluded to in Virgil’s Aeneid, when Aeneas encounters a tree that bleeds while on his quest to found a new home for the Trojan people.

Question 30

Polyphemus

Answer 30

gigantic one-eyed son of Poseidon and Thoosa in Greek mythology, one of the Cyclopes; Aeneas observes Polyphemus as he leads his flocks down to the sea after Achaemenides re-tells the story of how Odysseus and his men escaped Polyphemus in Homer’s Odyssey. Polyphemus is described as using a “lopped pine tree” as a walking staff. Once Polyphemus reaches the sea, he washes his oozing eye socket with water and groans painfully. Achaemenides is taken aboard Aeneas’ vessel and they begin to row away. Polyphemus hears them and gives chase into the sea, but is unable to reach them. He then lets out a great roar and the rest of the cyclopes in Polyphemus’ tribe come down to the shore and watch as Aeneas safely sail away

Question 31

Priam

Answer 31

the king of Troy during the Trojan War; father of Creusa

Question 32

Pygmalion

Answer 32

In Virgil’s epic poem The Aeneid, Pygmalion is the cruel-hearted brother of Dido who secretly kills Dido’s husband Sychaeus because of his lust for gold.

Question 33

Sinon

Answer 33

He pretended to have deserted the Greeks and, as a Trojan captive, told the Trojans that the giant wooden horse the Greeks had left behind was intended as a gift to the gods to ensure their safe voyage home.

Question 34

Sychaeus

Answer 34

Sychaeus, Dido’s husband, was killed by Dido’s brother, Pygmalion. Following his death, Dido pledged never to marry again, but her vow is threatened by the appearance of Aeneas, with whom she falls passionately in love. Sychaeus and Dido are reunited in the afterlife.

Question 35

Tisiphone

Answer 35

the third fury; In Book VI of Virgil’s Aeneid, Tisiphone is recognized as the furious and cruel guardian of the gates of Tartarus

Question 36

Turnus

Answer 36

In Virgil’s Aeneid, Turnus was the King of the Rutuli, and the chief antagonist of the hero Aeneas; killed by Aeneas in the last scene

Question 37

Venus

Answer 37

Venus (mythology), the Roman goddess of love, in Greek mythology known as Aphrodite; she was the mother of the Roman people through her son, Aeneas, who survived the fall of Troy and fled to Italy

Question 38

P. Vergilius Maro

Answer 38

VIRGIL

Question 39

Sybil

Answer 39

The prophetess at the Temple of Apollo and Aeneas goes to her to ask for guidance and to settle in Latinium. She tells him he will be faced with more war, and tells him to go to Dis to get guidance from his father’s soul