ABRAMO, MOSÈ, ENEA E LA LORO TERRA PROMESSA: VIRGILIO POETA (E PROFETA?) DI AUGUSTO

By comparing the figures of biblical patriarchs (Abraham, Moses and Aeneas) and trying to explain Virgil’s straining efforts to show Dardanus’s (and accordingly Aeneas’s) as well as Mantua’s (Virgil’s homeland) Etruscan features, this paper aims to trace in Aeneas’ character not only an “epic” hypostasis of Augustus but also a “lyrical” voice from Virgil himself. The idea is to read the Aeneid not only as the magna charta of Augustus/Maecenas’s cultural politics but also as a manifesto of the political culture of Virgil, the emerging rule’s prophet.