released 10/15/2024
In this lecture from June 2019, classical educator Louis Markos examines Book II of The Aeneid to argue that Virgil had an eschatological view of history. Through the story of Aeneas’s heartbreaking decision to leave Troy and go into exile, Markos illustrates surprising parallels with a Christian view of history as linear, meaningful, and purposeful. He also shows how the biblical concepts of felix culpa and typology are present in The Aeneid. Like Aeneas learned (through great trials), it is both glorious and difficult to live in an eschatological universe; it requires that one grow in the virtue of patience and take a long view of the arc of history.
Louis Markos’s corresponding lecture, “Hektor and Andromache: Balance in a World Gone Mad,” is available as a Bonus Feature here.
This lecture is presented courtesy of the Society for Classical Learning.
68 minutes
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