COMPARISON OF ODYSSEUS AND AENEAS

COMPARISON OF ODYSSEUS AND AENEAS

Introduction

Odysseus is a heron of the Odyssey and Aeneas is the Aeneid both in opposite armies during the Trojan War. Odysseus a king of Ithaca and was considered the smartest warrior and also king in Greece. On the other hand Aeneas was a fighter who was from Troy whose fate was in the Roman race situated in Italy. Considering the fact that the two individuals were considered heroes in their respective community, they have similar experiences in relationship to their struggles in life, virtues and backgrounds.

Despite their similarities there is also presence of differences considering innate disposition, nature of their quest and societal status. Both of the individual are considered to have possessed exemplary courage, leadership skills and perseverance. Odysseus expressed courage in several of his actions when saving his men and Aeneas on the other hand exhibited courage when he encountered Turnus who was the leader of Rutuli. Odyssey was able to demonstrate perseverance in his effort to reach home in Ithaca while Aenaeas exhibited his virtue through not giving up looking for Italy (Galinsky, K., 2015). The leadership existing in Odysseus was eminent through the respect showed to him and dedication of his men through the struggles which was present in his long and tiresome travel. Aeneas showed his leadership in battlefield particularly when he guided his army against fighting Rutuli and eventually gained defeat over them.

Contrasting the personality of these two individuals they have distinctive dispositions where Odysseus has a personality dominated by distraction, self-reliance and intellectuality. In the situations that he was positioned in he was distracted by temptress and obligations he was to accomplish. On the other hand Odysseus arrogance and confidence in self perversely got in his way. This is evident when he was making an effort to save his people from Circle and eventually was distracted by the seductive nature of the Circle. The Roman Empire was considered to be one of the dominating ancient world empires of all times (Galinsky, K., 2015). The Romans were considered to be exemplary patriotic and exuberant about themselves. The Aeneid presents comparison of the Greeks and the Romans and presents literal parallelism to Homer in illustration of sentiments. The personality of Odysseus and Aeneas express their cultures respectively.

The comparison between the two characters demonstrate that the Romans were more powerful even though both of them faces different experiences in relation to their purpose of traveling back home. Aeneas demonstrate the value of Romans pertaining to duty where he was delegate a task by Gods translated by mercury to migrate from Carthage and formed the Roman Empire. When Aeneas got this message the was prepared to obey as expressed through the text “As the sharp admonition and command from heaven had shaken him awake, he now burned only to be gone, to leave that land of the sweet life behind.”. The quote states that it was his natural instinct to comply with directives from the God’s even though he was going to leave “the sweet life behind” that entailed leaving his lover and beautiful life. Aeneas was able to sacrifice his individual happiness to serve his people and respond to call of duty.

Odysseus was not motivated by call of duty but left Troy to go back to his native place called Ithaca even though it took him almost a decade to complete his journey. Odysseus was basically motivated by self-interest and neglects the people he is indebted and accounted for even though he deviates several times from his course especially in Cyclops Island, pertaining to Calypso and the Circle which placed his people in dangerous situations and betrayed his wife. He was able to head back to Ithaca and reunite with his wife through control of the God’s. Odysseus activities were dominated by self-interest where he placed his persona adventures ahead of call for duty (Galinsky, K., 2015).

This kind of behavior was despised by Romans and in this essence Virgil utilizes comparison of Odysseus quest motivated by self-interest and Aeneas purpose for duty to drive Roman culture beyond and past the one for the Greeks. Aeneas fought for a reason which was beyond self as illustrated by his underworld dad in the lines “What glories follow Darden generations in after years, and from Italian blood what famous children in your line will come, souls of the future, living in our name.” and he was aware that his quest had meaning of assisting other people. And this fact propelled him more. Odysseus on the other hand fought for himself in order to fulfill his personal desires and attain glory which led to several conflicts in order to attain self-satisfaction.

Conclusion

This paper has compared and contrasted Odysseus and Aeneas as heroes of their society where Aeneas is considered to be the father of Roman Empire while Odysseus is associated with the Greeks. The two characters contemporarily influence the ideology of heroes in their context. The triumph associated with Aeneas over Odysseus is considered to be Virgil’s testimony of victory relating to Roman Culture.