P. Vergilius Maro (Virgil)
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P. Vergilius Maro

P. Vergilius Maro (Virgil)

70 BC – 19 BC

Latin

Publius Vergilius Maro was born in 70 BC near Mantua. He is the author of the Eclogues, the Georgics, and the Aeneid — the national epic of Rome and one of the supreme achievements of Western literature. He died at Brundisium in 19 BC, leaving the Aeneid unfinished, and reportedly asked that it be burned. Augustus overruled the request, and the poem was published posthumously by Varius Rufus and Plotius Tucca.

His influence on Latin literature, medieval culture, and the Western literary tradition is immeasurable. Dante chose him as guide through Hell and Purgatory. The Middle Ages venerated him as a prophet. Every Roman poet who came after him wrote in his shadow.

Works (3)

  • 1
    Aeneid epic

    The foundational epic of Latin literature. Aeneas escapes the burning ruins of Troy and journeys across the Mediterranean to found a new civilisation...

    12 books
    9,897 lines
  • 2
    Eclogues poetry

    Ten pastoral poems that reinvented the genre. Shepherds sing of love, loss, and exile in an idealised Arcadian landscape — but the real world keeps br...

    10 books
    830 lines
  • 3
    Georgics poetry

    A poem about farming that is really a poem about everything. Crops, vines, livestock, bees — and through them, war, death, empire, the nature of work,...

    4 books
    2,188 lines
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