Virgil

Virgil, fully Publius Vergilius Maro, was a Roman poet of the Augustan age, born around 70 BCE and died in 19 BCE. He is commonly known by the Latinized name Virgil and by his surname Vergilius in academic usage. His poetry is among the most influential works of Latin literature.

Virgil was born near Mantua in northern Italy. He studied in Cremona, Rome, and Naples. In the late Republic, he joined the literary circle of Maecenas, the patron of Octavian (Augustus), and its members helped shape the cultural program of early imperial Rome. His major works were the Eclogues (Bucolics), a collection of pastoral poems; the Georgics, a didactic poem on agriculture and rural life; and the Aeneid, an epic that tells how the Trojan hero Aeneas founded the city that would become Rome. He began the Aeneid in the 30s BCE and reportedly wished for it to be burned if incomplete; after his death it was published with the emperor Augustus supporting its dissemination.

The Aeneid, modeled partly on Homer, mixes myth with Roman history, tracing Aeneas's voyage from Troy to Italy and the founding of a line that will rule the world, while emphasizing pietas, fate, and Rome's destiny.

Virgil's influence on later literature is profound; in medieval Europe he was celebrated as a major national poet and his work influenced Dante and other writers. In the Renaissance, his style and the Aeneid served as models for poets. His reputation as a master of Latin diction and formal technique endures in classics study and in the broader Western literary canon.