With Love, Gracie

When looking for a broad topic, there are times when it is better to search in a place filled with many individuals, rather than one. In Plato’s Republic, Socrates seeks to find the definition of justice by creating a large city. By studying the effects on the city’s ruler, the state of the people, and the prosperity of the society, one can see that searching for justice in a city is preferable to a singular level, to determine whether there is objective justice. Rulers are the heads of their cities, and just as a snake leads its tail so does the nature of a ruler guide the country. Socrates begins building his city by creating soldiers and figure heads called guardians who practice the craft of warfare (374.b). They serve as the city's military, and while the guardians are not kings or senators, they are considered of high rank due to their service of protecting the city and its laws. Socrates demonstrates the importance of the guardians by saying, “But if the guardians of our law...

      Killed by fate and tortured by two goddesses, Dido, Queen of Carthage, was a mere steppingstone towards the building of Rome. Her tragic tale, recorded within the pages of Virgil’s Aeneid, was written by the cruel goddess of love and the selfish goddess of marriage, both of whom cared little for the mortal queen.  Poisoned by Venus’ love , Dido forsook her vows and committed suicide, Carthage’s queen not in her own mind , but a pawn used by the gods to serve their own purposes .       Before Aeneas reached Carthage, Venus planned to inflict the widowed queen with a sickly lover’s passion. Juno’s wrath had followed the Trojans to every city they came to, so Venus, in all her clever trickery, intended to offer up Dido as a potential wife for Aeneas to shift  Juno’s attention (Virgil, 1. 801-5). So, as Queen Dido of Carthage prepared a welcome feast for Aeneas and his men, Venus called for her son Eros so that he might inflict a ...