While many scholars believe that Virgil wrote the Aeneid to provide the Roman people with a propaganda epic glorifying their own history, there is ample evidence that Virgil wanted the Aeneid to be something much more precious: a parable about the powers of the Platonic soul. In his Republic, Plato describes the different elements of the soul: appetitive, fiery and rational. As the lowest part of the human soul, the appetite desires temporal things, the lowest in the hierarchy of beings. The spirit of the soul is that from which the soul draws its energy to fight to overcome challenges. The intellect governs man and is served by appetite and passion according to its place of primacy among the powers of the soul. Throughout the Aeneid, Virgil assigns important characters in the epic the task of describing the powers of the Platonic soul and revealing how these powers are ordered to the virtue of justice. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original Essay Before examining exactly how the characters in the Aeneid describe the various powers of the soul, it is necessary to discuss the nature of the soul according to Plato. In his Republic, Plato speaks of the kallipolis, the ideal city composed of three great classes: the producers, the guardians and the rulers, all of whom represent a particular power of the soul. Each class, with its correlative power, finds its perfection in a virtue particular to its functioning. It is up to the producers, those who help the city acquire the resources necessary for its survival, to exercise the virtue of moderation by declaring a leader. It is up to the guardians, who embody the spirit of the empire, to reject the false attractions of recklessness and demonstrate courage in their defense of the kallipolis. The city's leaders cultivate wisdom so that they can govern the city rationally. All classes of the city fulfilling their societal obligations, giving each class its respective due, achieve justice, this primordial virtue throughout Antiquity. Just as Plato describes the rulers of the city as necessarily aiming to promote justice among themselves, Virgil gives Aeneas a growth toward justice throughout the Aeneid. Despite Aeneas's efforts for such growth, the lower powers of his soul often hinder him and cause him to weaken. In her embodiment of the appetitive power of the soul, the tragic Dido, Queen of Carthage, plays a vital role in Aeneas's failure to bring justice. Virgil shows that the relationship Aeneas shares with Dido does not promote justice, but selfish excess. About Dido's total passion, Virgil writes: “She no longer thought of a secret love but called it marriage. / So, under this name, She hid her fault. Just as Dido leads Aeneas into serious sins, so the appetite, when it acts in a manner totally uncontrolled by the intellect, leads the individual towards unbridled pleasure. By relentlessly falling into such reckless pleasure, Dido loses her reputation among neighboring rulers. Lamenting her tarnished character, Dido cries out to Aeneas: For your sake, Libyans and nomadic kings, Hate me, my own Tyrians are hostile; Because of you I have lost my integrity And that admired name by which alone I once directed myself to the stars. (4.290-342)Such excess, such carelessness with regard to integrity, arouses in Dido as in Aeneas an attitude focused mainly on taking, rather than contributing to their respective governances. Dido neglects her duties to Carthage, where Aeneas stays all winter, having lost sight of her mission to found a new kingdom.On Dido's neglect, Virgil writes: How Dido in her beauty honored her company, Then how they rejoiced all winter, without caring for the kingdom, prisoners of lust. (4.175-234) Appetite dominates such behavior, totally ignoring one's duties to society and adopting disorderly indulgence. Like appetite, passion, when it totally dominates the soul, leads to disorder. Turnus, Aeneas' rival to take control of Italy and win the hand of the beautiful Lavinia, embodies ardor, and the unfortunate consequences of his rash decisions illustrate how, when a soul is under the reign of ardor , disorder arises. In his essay “War and Peace,” KW Grandsen writes of Turnus's general tendency toward ardor: “He is willing to take risks. » This is certainly true, as Turnus' rash judgments are often based solely on his desire for war: his bloodlust. In describing Turnus' character, Vergil writes: "the thirst for steel raged within him, the brutal madness of war, and anger above all" (7.634-636). Through the sad consequences of his vain acts, the character of Turnus symbolizes the need to channel the passion of the soul and to cling to the virtue of courage: a courage which seeks to defend the rights of others, rather than 'accumulate worthless glory for oneself. A particular incident in which Turnus distinguishes his folly is that in which he thoughtlessly stops the wrong weapon before rushing into battle, such is his thirst for the conquests of battle. The scene in which Turnus brutally kills Aeneas' comrade Pallas also signifies poorly controlled ardor - an outburst which consequently causes Aeneas to allow his own ardor to rise above the authority of his intellect. Turnus' misguided actions in battle, particularly his inhumane killings, reveal a great lack of justice. Such is the case when Turnus, locked alone within the gates of the Trojan camp and consumed in his own quest for glory, swings his sword wildly rather than open the gate and allow his comrades to enter. The fact that Turnus experiences an intense temptation to commit suicide points the reader toward the ultimate deprivation of such justice: depriving oneself of one's own life. Just as Aeneas must conquer Turnus to take control of the barbarism that permeates so much of early Latin society, so must the intellect take control of drive and appetite. Yet unlike Dido and Turnus, who so perfectly describe the corresponding powers of the soul, Aeneas's depiction of the intellectual power of the soul seems at first riddled with imperfection. Often, in the Aeneid, the hero of the epic cannot control his appetite and enthusiasm. His behavior with Dido and his disproportionate course of action in response to Turnus' murder of Pallas reveal his weakness in managing his lower faculties. Yet the lack of order in Aeneas's soul portends a growth in the power that should be present in all his actions: the intellect. Just as the entire Aeneid is a gradual journey toward the establishment of the country destined to become the Roman Empire, so Aeneas's inner growth is a process that encompasses the entire epic, and Aeneas , like Virgil's readers, has not yet discovered how this process will end. As Harold Bloom writes, “Virgil's Aeneas is a man separated by a destiny of which he himself seems uncertain. » Aeneas actualizes his potential for inner growth in the intellectual control of his appetite when he makes the decision to leave Dido. Aeneas, although wishing to stay with Dido, understands his duty to establish a place of settlement for his people. Regarding Aeneas' struggle to leave, 1984.