Retro Rants: The Aeneid

More Commonly Referred To As “The Fucking Aeneid”

This book is torture and quite frankly I feel like Virgil’s writing of it dutifully earned him his place in the outer ring of hell in Dante’s Inferno.

Including Your Fuck Ups As It Turns Out There, Virg

Honestly, Roman literature is like drinking an overly dry merlot: it sucks all the moisture out of your mouth, and too much of it will leave you with a headache and a sensitivity to light with the strong urge to throw up.

Look, dear reader, I love ancient history. Classical Greece is my jam and I love the Romans from a historical perspective. Say what you will but, for good or ill, they accomplished a lot. They created engineering marvels including heated bathhouses, indoor plumbing, and miles of aqueducts to carry water from the mountains to their cities. They conquered swathes of the known world, implemented a frighteningly adept bureaucracy to maintain it, and generally improvised, adapted, or just plain overcame any obstacle that came their way.

Why, then, does their writing suck so much ass?

Not Even Remotely

I mean Livy, while being one of the most popular Roman writers, focuses a little too much on politics and biographies—but a patriotic history is expected to be a little dry.

But this? The Aeneid? The mythological story of the foundation of the Romans as written by the Romans?This is supposed to have flair! Pomp! Excess and fun! And instead what do I get? A slog of bastardized fanfiction shoehorning the Romans into the Trojan war.  

What the fuck, Virgil? You’re better than this! And, Virgil, buddy, I hate to be the one to tell you this but you kinda make your boy Aeneas (and Rome in general) seem like a massive dick. Fucking over Dido and Carthage? Forshame.

Shame I say!

Having your protagonist possess zero agency to the point where the gods literally have to descend to say “go this way, idiot” at every crossroads makes for boring reading. I’m supposed to be on this guy’s side and instead I end up wondering if Jupiter has to wipe the guys ass or if he just walks around smelling like a cattle yard.

And you know what, dear reader? I have not met a single soul who enjoyed reading any version of this story.

Maybe if you read it in Latin it’ll make your fun-bits tingle but I can confirm that in English it has all the whimsical appeal of a wet, eggy fart.

There’s no spark, no driving force to make you want to read more. The story is just…there. A dude is trudging across the Mediterranean having his hand held the whole way by omniscient deities who will interfere at the slightest threat to Aeneas’ morals let alone his life. There’s no drama allowed for the protagonist as he is preordained to establish (contain your orgasms) Rome.

That’s the hook. That’s all there is.

If the very mention of SPQR makes you pitch a tent then maybe Virgil’s Aeneid will give you some sloppy wet dreams.

If not, well, it’ll certainly put you to sleep.

So well done, Virgil, you antiquated old coot: you’ve made either a piece of historic-eroticism or a cure for insomnia.

Hope it was worth it, buddy.

(I award you no points and may god have mercy on your soul)    

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