View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Which of the following is NOT a reason why Anna thinks Dido should make a match with Aeneas?

2. What does the fake Iulus make Dido forget?

3. Who tells Aeneas he is in Carthage?

4. Whom does Jupiter send to talk to Aeneas?

5. From whom will Julius Caesar get his name?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe the Harpies.

2. Why should Aeneas not have tried to found a city in Thrace?

3. What message does Anchises give Aeneas in a dream?

4. What does Dido ask her people to do and what does she personally vow to do before she committed suicide?

5. How does Priam compare and contrast Achilles and Pyrrhus?

6. Once Aeneas is definitely leaving, what disagreeable options lay before Dido that make death seem the best choice?

7. Compare and contrast the Greeks with the Trojans in the affair of the wooden horse.

8. Describe the state of construction in Carthage in Book 1.

9. What instances in Book V reveal how the Trojans feel about burying their dead?

10. What is the problem with Aeneas remaining in Carthage?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

A bildingsroman is a work of art that tells of the development of a character, perhaps telling how the character matures or grows capable of taking on a duty as the process of a journey or a series of trials. Explain why The Aeneid is or is not a bildingsroman by examining how Aeneas does or does not develop over the course of it. Examine issues such as:

1) his capacity as a leader

2) his control over his emotions and temper

3) the wiseness of his judgement

4) his treatment of others.

Essay Topic 2

In Book XII, in one of many references to a place that had been built or civilized by the time he was writing but had not yet been constructed in the past, Virgil says that Juno was "gazing from the height we now call Alban--nameless then, it had no fame or glory." Use this and other examples of Virgil's mentioning past and present places to compare Rome at its birth in this work with the Roman Empire of Virgil's time. Address questions such as in what ways have the places changed, have they changed for the better, and what sorts of places are they that he bothers to mention?

Essay Topic 3

How well do you think Aeneas would have been able to fulfill his fate without the help of gods and goddesses? As you answer, take into account the actions of divine beings working against him. If there had been no divine interaction on either side, what might have been the final outcome and why?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,024 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample