Uploaded January 2026 | Updated September 2026, 4 days ago
What does it cost to found a civilization?
In this Ralston College virtual open house lecture, Provost and Professor of Latin Dr. Butterfield offers a penetrating introduction to Virgil’s Aeneid—not as simple imperial propaganda, but as one of the most psychologically complex and morally unsettling poems ever written.
Set against the rise of Augustus and the birth of the Roman Empire, the Aeneid confronts enduring questions: the tension between private love and public duty, the meaning of fate, the moral limits of political necessity, and the tragic losses that underwrite civilizational greatness. Through close attention to Dido, Aeneas, Turnus, and the poem’s shocking final act of violence, Dr. Butterfield shows why Virgil’s epic has shaped Western thought for two millennia—and why it still speaks powerfully to modern political and cultural life.
This session also offers a window into the intellectual life of Ralston College’s one-year M.A. in the Humanities: an immersive program beginning in Greece and continuing in Savannah, Georgia, devoted to the serious study of classical languages, philosophy, literature, and the enduring questions of human life.
For students, scholars, and readers drawn to the foundations of Western civilization, this lecture invites not certainty—but deeper reflection.
What does it cost to found a civilization?
In this Ralston College virtual open house lecture, Provost and Professor of Latin Dr. Butterfield offers a penetrating introduction to Virgil’s Aeneid—not as simple imperial propaganda, but as one of the most psychologically complex and morally unsettling poems ever written.
Set against the rise of Augustus and the birth of the Roman Empire, the Aeneid confronts enduring questions: the tension between private love and public duty, the meaning of fate, the moral limits of political necessity, and the tragic losses that underwrite civilizational greatness. Through close attention to Dido, Aeneas, Turnus, and the poem’s shocking final act of violence, Dr. Butterfield shows why Virgil’s epic has shaped Western thought for two millennia—and why it still speaks powerfully to modern political and cultural life.
This session also offers a window into the intellectual life of Ralston College’s one-year M.A. in the Humanities: an immersive program beginning in Greece and continuing in Savannah, Georgia, devoted to the serious study of classical languages, philosophy, literature, and the enduring questions of human life.
For students, scholars, and readers drawn to the foundations of Western civilization, this lecture invites not certainty—but deeper reflection.
