Promoting morality in the Aeneid and the Metamorphoses Just as the authors of the Bible use an evocative, almost mythological vehicle to convey covenants and laws that set the moral tone of Jewish societies and Christian, the Latin poets Virgil and Ovid use an equally supernatural method to advance their social and moral goals in Roman society. Where Virgil's Aeneid describes Aeneas as the ideal and devout Roman patriarch, absent from the conflicted Rome of Virgil's youth, Ovid's Metamorphoses lacks the patriotic nuances of Virgil's epic. Instead, Ovid's lighthearted Metamorphoses depicts several mythical stories—some not dissimilar to the etiological justifications found in early Jewish writings—that tell of the transitory nature of life and its effect on society. When Augustus defeated Mark Antony at Actium and began the first acts of his rule of what would be one of the most powerful empires in history, he sought to restore the morality and patriotism characteristic of pre-civil war Rome. The unflappable Roman patriarch, thought lost in the fray of civil war, became the center of Augustus' propaganda and legislative campaign to once again restore honor and morality to his empire. It is from Virgil's unfinished epic, The Aeneid, that this exemplary citizen is born, who is not only a proud warrior but also renounces personal happiness for the well-being of his country. Virgil's unfinished epic - almost discarded by its author until the intervention of Augustus - not only serves to mitigate the violence and massacre of past civil wars by attributing them to the course of destiny, but also uses this conflict as a tool to sculpt Aeneas as ideal. patriarchal figure. All these images on Vulcan's shield, the gif of his mother... in the center of the paper... y. 6 October 1999 Gillis, Daniele. Eros and death in the Aeneid. L'ERMA, by BRETDCHNEIDER, ROME, 1983.Henry, Elisabeth. The vigor of prophecy, a study on Virgil's Aeneid. Bristol Classical Press, Great Britain, 1989.Lyne, ROAM Further entries in Virgil's Aeneid. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1987.Mandelbaum, Allen, trans. Ovid's Metamorphoses. By Ovid. San Diego: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1993.Poschl, Viktor. Virgil's art, image and symbol in the Aeneid. Trans. Gerda Seligson, Greenwood Press, Connecticut 1986.Silvestris, Bernardus. Commentary on the first six books of Virgil's Aeneid. Translated by Schreiber and Maresca. University of Nebraska Press. London, 1979. Quinn, Kenneth. Virgil's Aeneid, a critical description. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London. 1968.