The deer hunter: A portrait of Aeneas

Abstract

The theme of hunting occurs throughout the Aeneid at strategicpoints to link specific events and foreshadow certain outcomes.Many scholars have noted the increasingly ominous nature ofhunting in the epic: from Aeneas’s first hunt in book one to providefood for his people, through Ascanius’s trophy hunt that sparks thewar in Italy, to Aeneas’s final vengeful hunting of Turnus. But as faras the protagonist Aeneas is concerned it is specifically through actsof deer hunting that an increasing lack of feeling in his charactercomes to light. In this paper I will argue that, through recurringinstances of deer hunting, both literal and symbolic, a gradualdesensitization of Aeneas is revealed. This prepares the reader for hisfinal act in the epic: his killing of Turnus in book twelve, anunnecessary act that strips him of the qualities of pietas soabundantly attributed to him throughout the work.