Sacrifice and Prophecy in The Aeneid Sacrifice and prophecies are two main reoccurring customs found in books six through ten of The Aeneid. The characters are taught that in order to live and accomplish anything, they must make sacrifices in order to appease the gods. The characters are also taught that they should listen to prophecies because they normally come true. The characters in The Aeneid lived their lives to please the gods, if they chose to go against the gods, they were punished or even killed. Sacrifices and prophecies shown in the epic allow for a theme of fate to be seen. Sacrifices and prophecies are the two main customs the characters in needed to follow in order to survive in The Aeneid. There were many times that characters in The Aeneid were instructed to make a sacrifice in order to get something accomplished. Aymenn Al-Tamimi said, “The scholar C. Bandera has noted what he deems to be two levels of sacrifice in the Aeneid. The first is the sacrifice that is part of rituals demonstrating pietas towards the gods, but the second is the more general level of sacrifice that pervades the poem.” One example of sacrifice used to appease the gods can be found on page 160 in The Aeneid, it says, “In the entrance way, Androgeos’ death appeared, then Cecrops’ …show more content…
The oracle of Faunus soon makes the same point in an ambiguous utterance whose negative implications Latinus does not seem to grasp” (412). It is clear that Virgil felt strongly that sacrifice was important for his characters in order to appease the gods and live their