Virgil

(70-19 BCE) The Roman poet Publius Vergilius Maro is commonly referred to as Virgil and is most noted as the author of the epic poem the Aeneid.

The Aeneid was written between the years 29-19 BCE during the reign of Augustus Caesar, i.e., Octavian, and was an undisguised attempt to re-instill the noble values on which Rome had been founded and to give new faith to the Roman people after the flagrant excesses of Julius Caesar and Marcus Antony.

The Aeneid tells the story of the Greek hero, Aineias (Aeneas), the final battle of Troy and the eventual founding of Rome by Troy’s survivors; it’s impossible to read the Aeneid without comparing it to the Greek epics such as The Iliad and The Odyssey; one glaring difference is that The Iliad and The Odyssey were written for the “people” and the Aeneid was written for an emperor; Virgil’s loyalties aside, he created an important work of art and gave us a glimpse into the mind the Romans of antiquity; Virgil died before he could finish the Aeneid but Augustus Caesar had the unfinished poem copied and distributed.