Conjugal and erotic love in the 'Aeneid

Chapter 1: Two goddesses, two loves. Chapter 1 analyzes the relationship of Juno and Venus to conjugal and erotic love through a series of close readings. Venus emerges as a monolithic figure for whom erotic love is all in all. Juno is a much more complicated figure than Venus and must come to grips with both conjugal and erotic affairs. Events in Book 4 prove her unable to find an equilibrium between the two kinds of love.;Chapter 2: Juno and Venus as characters. Venus' personality appears through the tension between her roles as goddess of erotic love and as the mother of a mortal, Aeneas. Similarly, Juno's character emerges from the tension between her roles as a patroness and avenging deity.;Chapter 3: Homeric antecedents. Vergil's treatment of Hera lends to the characterization of Juno a Homeric/Greek quality that makes her alien to Rome. Venus, while still much informed by Aphrodite, has in her greater freedom from the Homeric framework room to develop new Roman aspects. Upon this difference between Venus and Juno, Vergil builds his depiction of Venus Genetrix.;Chapter 4: Empedocles and Vergil. The connection of conjugal and erotic love to Empedoclean thought is most prominent when the two loves and their goddesses are active in the unification of Trojans and Italians which will lead to the creation of a Roman people.;Empedoclean cosmology presents Love and Strife as forces opposed to each other yet both essential in shaping the universe. This kind of dialectic applies well to conjugal and erotic love in the Aeneid. As a result, it is not shocking to see Rome's Genetrix associated with forces opposed to Rome's creation because the forces opposed to the city are equally responsible for shaping it. This allows us to make better sense of Juno's reconciliation. In this regard, the cyclic nature of the Empedoclean cosmos is important, because it implies that Juno's reconciliations are temporary since no Golden Age lasts forever.