Aeneid
Virgil’s Aeneid focuses around the central character of Aeneas but many of the secondary and background characters act as well defined symbols throughout Virgil’s epic. Virgil’s audience is already aware of the outcome of this story and this knowledge allows them to concentrate more on the surrounding story lines rather than just viewing the Aeneid as a means to an end. Virgil takes great care to introduce specific artistic reasoning into each character. The representation he uses to present Aeneas’s son, Iulus, is one of the more interesting and complex symbols. Throughout the story, other characters talk about Iulus and his presence is known but he never actually speaks and has a chance to develop his own personality. Virgil invokes this method to make the connection between Aeneas’s son and the future of Rome. Iulus is representative of the future; though it is known to be there it is not yet developed into full detail and given its own personality.