Losing In Virgil's The Aeneid

Losing is something everyone experiences. No one can know what winning is without losing. When people lose they always seek for an answer to why they lost. They usually blame someone or something because it is part of human nature. People always strive for perfection and refuse to believe they are imperfect. Humans also try to put themselves in a better light than they actually are to make the loss sound as if it were more luck than skill. Both of these themes are usually in tales of war, for example would be in “Book II: How They Took the City,” of Virgil’s The Aeneid. Virgil shows that when events do not turn out as anticipated humans blame others, put themselves in a better light, and actually change events to serve their purpose in Aeneas’s

What humans do most is blame, blaming is a basic part of human nature and always will be. We usually see this in interviews after losing in sports. One sport humans can see this is football. An example of this is a recent interview with Tom Brady after the Patriots’ first loss of the season. In the interview, Brady said, “Having a couple of third downs called back- huge downs we had called back by penalty” (Brady). Brady puts the blame on the referees and he also puts the blame on his fellow teammates. He puts the blame on the referees because the referees are the ones calling the penalties. Also, during the game Brady was arguing with the referees about calls that did not go his way. He also blames his teammates for committing those penalties that caused for the referees to call the plays back. Brady also blames injuries for the loss. Brady said, “Losing a player like Gronk in the fourth quarter.” (Brady) Brady is saying that losing Gronk, the Patriots’ tight end, in the fourth quarter is another reason they lost, because the replacement for Gronk could not get the job done. This is a common blame, especially in sports, because individual players have a huge impact on the team, yet it is a team sport and the team wins or loses