Go West, Young Myth

Oct 27, 2024
3 min read

Updated: Dec 5, 2024

Americans lack a myth that shapes our identity and nation—or do we? When Virgil set out to write his Aeneid, Augustus gave clear instructions: it was to be an encomium in narrative form, heralding the Caesar as a messiah-like figure. Virgil did this, but he also did other things, one of which was codifying the Roman myth, enshrining Pious Aeneas forever as the author of Roman greatness and culture. Virgil does this, as classicist and scholar Katherine Toll writes, “[B]ecause the past—or, more accurately, the stories that we shape for ourselves about our pasts, both personal and national—is so important a factor in the forming of identity.”[1]

Scholars now tell us that the idea of a Trojan founding Rome—especially in the way described in Virgil’s tale—is highly unlikely. And who knows whether the Ancient Romans genuinely believed in the Aeneid the same way Ken Ham believes in Genesis 1-11. In fact, the Roman historian Livy, a contemporary of Virgil, wrote about this myth, saying it was “suitable rather to the fictions of poetry than to the genuine records of history,” and that he had “no intention either to affirm or refute [it].” He continues, “This indulgence is conceded to antiquity, that by blending things human with divine, it may make the origin of cities appear more venerable[.]”[2] Augustus would likely prefer to be literally descended from a god, but for the people writ large, their founding myth relies not on fact but on truth: Roman superiority.

Modern Americans have little interest in the heroes of our past or the legacy of our forebears. Most of the effort spent on such things involves tearing down statues—literal or otherwise—or else deconstructing the ethos and myth of the American dream.

I would submit this is detrimental to a nation’s unity and cohesion because, as Toll writes, “[myths] contribute crucially to their sense of existence as a people and what sort of people they are[.]”[3] George Washington never chopped down a cherry tree. Pious Aeneas never fled Troy with his father on his back and his child’s hand in his. But Washington did step down from power, just as the Cincinnatus stepped down from a dictatorship so long ago. Perhaps the Alamo was not as romantic as we might like. Perhaps the West’s final consummation is not to be found in America. But we are a nation bound together by what if not the myth that brought us here?

The wider world has known of the Americas only for five hundred years—a small time compared to the grand sweep of history. That means that within a few hundred years, our ancestors left their homes and came west seeking a better life. Just as Aeneas did, our ancestors risked it all—maybe even in response to a Divine call—and went west. That is our myth. May we honor and cling to it.

There the Lord of Fire,

Knowing the prophets, knowing the age to come,

Had wrought the future story of Italy,

The triumphs of the Romans…

Knowing nothing of the events themselves,

[Aeneas] felt joy in their pictures, taking up

Upon his shoulder all the destined acts

And fame of his descendants.[4]

Bibliography

[1] Katherine Toll, “Making Roman-Ness and the ‘Aeneid,’” Classical Antiquity 16, no. 1 (1997): 41. https://doi.org/10.2307/25011053.

[2] Livy, The History of Rome, Preface, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/19725/19725-h/19725-h.htm#book1.

[3] Toll, 41.