Pietas versus Violentia in the Aeneid

From classical to contemporary leadership challenges

“…That is, the narrative of the Iliad is from the perspective of one man versus all (Odysseus), as opposed to the Aenied, where Aeneas is the leader of all for one thing. As Hahn (1931) noted, "Aeneas is human enough to be tempted, and great is his provocation; but we must be thankful that he does not fall" (p. 13).…”

“…That is, the leadership effectiveness of Aeneas grows greater as his responsibilities grow, "who comes in the end to accept freely the terrible burden placed on him by destiny; and who at last shakes off the Trojan past to face the Roman future" (Dudley, 1961, p. 53). Further, Aeneas's gravitas and dignitas, his public and private integrity, suffer severe setbacks, but his virtus and pietas allow him to align with the gods and fulfill his destiny (Earl, 1967;Hahn, 1931;McLeish, 1972). As MacKay (1963) posited, the Aeneid represents Virgil's comment on the human condition: that great leaders are necessary, but that they have a bit of the scoundrel in them; he can appreciate their admirable qualities without shutting their eyes to their unlovable qualities, and he is not sentimental enough 8 JOURNAL OF LEADERSHIP STUDIES • Volume 5 • Number 1 • DOI:10.1002/jls first place, that he has a divine element within him, and will think of his own inner nature as a kind of consecrated image of God; and so he will always act and think in a way worthy of so great a gift of the gods.…”

“…Political power and cultural creativity four stages. First, the Aeneid was coded to identify manifest and latent themes that emerged from Virgil's primary (Fitzgerald, 1981) and critical reviews of the text (see, e.g., Bell, 1999;Bowra, 1933;Cairns, 1989;Hahn, 1931;Smiley, 1948;Toll, 1997;Wilson, 1969). Second, insights were coded at a meta-level to identify overarching themes.…”

“…Whether through positive reinforcement or negative punishment, the importance of integrity in the form of pietas toward the anthropomorphic gods is a central feature of the Aeneid (Coleman, 1982;Hahn, 1931). We know that contemporary Romans valued this kind of integrity.…”

“…1 Originally written to enhance the political legitimacy of the Augustan regime (Bell, 1999;Cairns, 1989;Korfmacher, 1956), the poem was also aimed to extol and glorify values-based leadership captured in traditional Roman virtues (e.g., pietas-reasoned judgment and performance of one's duties toward followers and family), which were deemed critical to the peace, prosperity, and effectiveness of the Roman imperium (Earl, 1967;Edwards, 1960;Galinsky, 1996;Hahn, 1931;Hammond, 1933;Holland, 2004). The epic also provides deeper insights from a leadership perspective as,…”