Virgil The Aeneid

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Publius Vergilius Maro, or simply Virgil, was born in 70 BCE in Mantua, northern Italy. He began working on his magnum opus, the Aeneid, in around 29 BCE and continued revising it until his death from fever in 19 BCE. In Virgil’s lifetime as Rome’s leading literary figure, he wrote a number of poetic works such as Eclogues and Georgics, but it is for Aeneid he achieved lasting respect. The Aeneid has its roots in Greek literature, largely modelling after Homer’s Illiad and Odyssey, sharing the same classical “epic metre”. Aeneas, the Trojan protagonist, was already known from Illiad, but Virgil’s continuation of his story neatly connects the legends of Troy with those of Rome, in particular the virtues of the hero with traditional Roman values.