It was the
idea of the service of the family and the State that lay at the root
of the union. This is well illustrated, like so many other Roman
ideas, in the _Aeneid_ of Virgil. Those who persist in looking on
Aeneas with modern eyes, and convict him of perfidy towards Dido,
forget that his passion for Dido was a sudden one, not sanctioned by
the gods or by favourable auspices, and that the ultimate union with
Lavinia, for whom he forms no such attachment, was one which would
recommend itself to every Roman as justified by the advantage to the
State. The poet, it is true, betrays his own intense humanity in
his treatment of the fate of Dido, but he does so in spite of his
theme,--the duty of every Roman to his family and the State. A Roman
would no doubt fall in love, like a youth of any other nation, but his
passion had nothing to do with his life of duty as a Roman. This idea
of marriage had serious consequences, to which we shall return later
on.
When the day for the wedding arrives, our bride assumes her bridal
dress, laying aside the toga praetexta of her childhood and dedicating
her dolls to the Lar of her family; and wearing the reddish veil
(_flammeum_) and the woollen girdle fastened with a knot called the
knot of Hercules,[214] she awaits the arrival of the bridegroom in
her father's house.
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