What extended simile is used in the Aeneid?

Answer 1

There are many extended similes in the Aeneid. An early one occurs near line 150 in Book I.

Neptune arrives to calm the storm which Juno has raised with the help of Aeolus. Neptune is compared to an elder statesman who meets a crowd bent on riot and calms it by telling it a homilectic story. (The image would have been familiar to citizens of first century Rome - and of course was used again by Shakespeare in his play Coriolanus - since sixteenth century London would also have seen this happen).

Here is Dryden's translation of the passage:

Where'er he guides

His finny coursers and in triumph rides,

The waves unruffle and the sea subsides.

As, when in tumults rise th' ignoble crowd,

Mad are their motions, and their tongues are loud;

And stones and brands in rattling volleys fly,

And all the rustic arms that fury can supply:

If then some grave and pious man appear,

They hush their noise, and lend a list'ning ear;

He soothes with sober words their angry mood,

And quenches their innate desire of blood:

Answer 2

One extended simile in the Aeneid is the comparison of Aeneas' shield to the heavens and the constellations, symbolizing the epic scope of his destiny and the cosmic forces at play in his journey.