Which scholar argues that The Aeneid reflects Augustus's policy not because of Augustus's own ideas, but because Virgil's and Augustus's views aligned?

• A. Ian Du Quesney
• B. Richard Jenkyns
• C. Deryck Williams
• D. Camps

Answer: (C)

The question tests how we understand the relationship between Virgil’s Aeneid and Augustan policy. Deryck Williams argues that the poem reflects Augustan aims not because Augustus imposed his own ideas on Virgil, but because Virgil and Augustus shared a similar outlook. In Williams’s view, the Augustan program and Virgil’s poetic ambitions converge: the statesman’s political goals and the poet’s sense of Roman destiny and pietas align so tightly that the Aeneid becomes a literary realization of that shared vision. This framing lets Virgil operate with artistic independence while still producing work that elegantly serves the regime’s aims, rather than merely delivering Augustus’s instructions word-for-word.

Other scholars have emphasized different angles—either focusing on direct influence from the patron or on Virgil’s own nuanced voice within an Augustan context—but Williams’s emphasis on alignment and collaboration makes his interpretation a distinctive and compelling account of why the Aeneid reads as both art and political mythology.