The Aeneid

Description

The Aeneid is one of the most important epics in world literature and a story that continues to inspire works of art and literature even today. Originally written in Latin and comprising almost ten thousand verses in dactylic hexameter, the form of meter used in epic poetry in both Greek and Latin, the poem has been translated to almost every language in the world and it is re-translated over and over again, the most recent English translation having been provided by Barry B. Powell in 2015.

The Aeneid tells the story of Aeneas, a legendary hero who takes part in the Trojan War, then travels to Italy after the war is over to found Rome. He may be familiar to those who have read Homer’s Iliad for he is a character in the classic Greek epic poem as well – Virgil takes this secondary character and makes him the protagonist of his poem, the legendary hero of many virtues who becomes the founder of the Roman Empire. Virgil’s epic poem comprises twelve chapters, out of which the first six tell the story of the journey of Aeneas and his men from Troy to Italy, while the second half tells about how the hero and his followers conquered the territory, winning the war against the locals.

Virgil wrote The Aeneid between 29 BC and 19 BC, in a decade full of political conflicts and turbulence, but he never finished it (in 19 BC he travelled to Greece to revise the epic, but he fell ill and died soon after his return to Rome, without being able to complete the revision). Many literary historians consider the epic to be subversive of the political regime of Augustus, while others see it as a poem that praises the political leadership, the character of Aeneas bearing resemblance to Augustus, the Emperor. The poem enjoyed great success at the time of writing – Virgil recited parts of it in front of the Emperor as well.
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