Virgil believed that loyalty to the state and devotion to family represented the essential Roman virtues. Thus, he portrayed Aeneas as the dutiful servant of the gods who contributed to the construction of Rome’s ideal. Augustus ordered Virgil to continue Homer’s works and glorify Augustus. Thus, the reworks aimed to establish a Roman Empriric ideal by portraying a great, strong, and decisive leader who formed a new nation on Italy’s shore, demonstrating perfect Roman. To illustrate, he took on board Achaeminides even though he was an enemy and Greek. The reason was that Aeneas was virtuous and perfect, so he could not leave even his enemy on the Land of Cyclops. Moreover, the protagonist respected the gods and parents as he followed their prophecy. Aeneas never gave up regardless of obstacles, such as Juno’s persuading the Trojan woman to set fire to the boats and prevent Aeneas’ travel to Italy.
It is essential to mention that although Aeneas was the son of Anchises and Venus, he was a flawed mortal man with his own opinion and emotions, which justified his unreasonable actions. Virgil slightly mocked Augustus here through the Aeneas’s decisions. One was when he saw Helen and decided to take revenge on her because of the damage she had caused to his homeland. His intention of brutally killing a woman, even the guilty, proved his uncontrollable fury and anger, which could not be considered the Roman ideal. Although Venus persuaded him not to harm Helen, he was willing to demonstrate his power by fighting a woman. Therefore, some qualities of Aeneas showed how perfect Romans should be, while some failed to prove their virtues.