According to ancient Roman, pietas denote the act of showing pity to a particular group of people, gods, the general community or one’s country. In the epic poem Aeneid, the hero character Aeneas is portrayed as an individual who possesses human qualities due to his pietas acts to people which is revealed twenty times throughout the poem. Aeneas shows pietas to different persons like Anchises, goddess Venus, Ascanius, King Priam, Euryalus, Salius, Nisus and his country.
In the whole epic, Aeneas being the one leading the survivors after the Trojan is invaded towards Italy in search of a new life, he is faced with numerous challenges due to his merciful acts. Among the challenges Aeneas is faced with includes carrying his old father in the back while holding his son in the arms as they try to escape from the burning city of Troy. Further, Aeneas faces a lot of challenges while trying to be patriotic to his country and organizing military campaign aimed at conquering Italy and establishing a new country for his people. Other problems that Aeneas faces is a divided community of his countrymen some of whom believe that they lacked the capacity of defeating Italy and setting up a new Trojan city there even with the assurance of their leader.
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According to Virgil, Aeneas personal feelings are set aside when he opts not to go back to the burning city of Troy where her wife had gone back but rather focused on leading the surviving persons away in the underworld and sail to a far land in Italy.
As Virgil denotes in the epic poem, one of the instances where Aeneas pietas is evident is during the raid of Troy city. Aeneas due to his kind heart decides to go for his old father in the rubbles of the burning city and carry him on his back as he also holds his old boy on the arms which is a merciful act towards his family.
