In these
words, as is shown by those that follow, the _munus hominum_ is exactly
what it is in the _Aeneid_, duty to Man and the State, and as it is laid
down for man by God, it is also duty to Him. The State finds its
perfection in the individual so long as he thus fulfills the will of
God.[886]

Let us now go on to watch Aeneas as he gradually develops this perfect
balance of motive.

Aeneas is marked at the very outset of the poem as "insignem pietate
virum"; the key-note of his character is sounded here at once with
skill, and the key thus suggested (to use musical metaphor once more) is
maintained steadily throughout it. The quality demanded by the gods from
every true Roman who would take his part in carrying out the divine
mission of Rome must be emphasised in the ideal Roman. Yet, as we read
on, we soon discover that Aeneas was by no means as yet a perfect
character. It can hardly be by accident that the poet has described him
as yielding to despair and bewailing his fate on the first approach of
danger--forgetting the mission before him and the destiny driving him
on, and wishing that he were lying dead with Hector under the walls of
Troy (i. 92 foll.). It would have been easy enough for Virgil to have
taken up at once the heroic vein in the man, as it was left him by
Homer,[887] and to have made him urge his men to bestir themselves or to
yield bravely to fate. And this is precisely what Aeneas does _when the
storm is over and the danger past_ (198 foll.); yet even then he is not
whole-hearted about it:

talia voce refert, curisque ingentibus aeger
_spem voltu simulat_, premit alto corde dolorem.

At the very moment, that is, when he expresses his belief in his destiny
and the duty of making for Italy, he still has misgivings, though he
dare not express them.

Heinze has remarked[888] that before this, at the sack of Troy, he had
shown a want of self-control, and yielded to a mad passion of desperate
fighting that is not to be found in the Aeneas of the last six books
(ii. 314 foll.):

arma amens capio nec sat rationis in armis.

_Furor_ and _ira_ drive him headlong; we are reminded of the mad fury of
Mezentius or Turnus.

Again, after the death of Priam Venus has to remind him of his duty to
his father, wife, and son (ii. 594 foll.), reproaching him for his loss
of sanity and self-control:

nate, quis indomitas tantus dolor excitat iras?
quid furis, aut quonam nostri tibi cura recessit