Poet · 70 BC – 19 BC
Virgil
Key Takeaways
- Virgil wrote the Aeneid, the epic of Rome's legendary founding by Aeneas.
- His poetry became the cornerstone of Latin literary education for centuries.
- He also wrote the pastoral Eclogues and the Georgics on farming.
- His work profoundly shaped later writers, from Dante to Milton.
Virgil was the supreme poet of Rome, and his epic the Aeneid became the story Rome told about itself. Writing in the age of Augustus, he gave the new empire a founding myth to rival the Greek epics.
The Aeneid
Modelled on the poems of Homer, the Aeneid follows the Trojan hero Aeneas as he escapes the fall of Troy and journeys to Italy, fated to found the line that will lead to Rome. It wove together myth, history and the destiny of the Roman Empire into a single grand vision.
A poet for the ages
Before the Aeneid, Virgil had already mastered the pastoral Eclogues and the Georgics, a poem on farming and the land. So towering was his reputation that, more than a thousand years later, Dante chose Virgil as his guide through the afterlife in the Divine Comedy — a measure of how completely this poet shaped the literature that followed.
Influence
Virgil gave Rome its founding epic and set the standard for Latin poetry, becoming the model and inspiration for European literature for two millennia.
Legacy
Revered through the Middle Ages as a sage and poet, he was chosen by Dante as the very guide to the afterlife.
Major Works
- The Aeneid
- The Georgics
- The Eclogues
Connections
Frequently Asked Questions
Who was Virgil?
Virgil (70–19 BC) was a Roman poet of the Augustan age, author of the Aeneid, the national epic of Rome and one of the most influential poems in Western literature.
What is the Aeneid about?
The Aeneid tells of the Trojan hero Aeneas, who flees the ruins of Troy and journeys to Italy to become an ancestor of the Romans, dramatizing Rome's mythical destiny.
Citations & Sources
People Like Virgil
Homer
95Homer was the legendary ancient Greek poet to whom the great epics the Iliad and the Odyssey are attributed, foundational works of Western literature.
Why Virgil modelled the Aeneid on Homer's Iliad and Odyssey.
Augustus
94Augustus was the first Roman emperor, the heir of Julius Caesar who ended a century of civil war, established the Roman Empire, and inaugurated the Pax Romana.
Why Virgil wrote under the patronage of the emperor Augustus, glorifying Rome's destiny.
Dante Alighieri
93Dante Alighieri was an Italian poet of the late Middle Ages whose masterpiece, the Divine Comedy, is considered one of the greatest works of world literature and helped establish the Italian language.
Why Dante chose Virgil as his guide through Hell and Purgatory in the Divine Comedy.
Ovid
82Ovid was a Roman poet of the Augustan age whose Metamorphoses, a sweeping collection of mythological tales, became one of the most influential works of classical literature on later Western art and poetry.
Why Also a poet & writer · Active in the same era
John Milton
83John Milton was an English poet and political writer of the 17th century whose epic Paradise Lost is considered the greatest long poem in the English language and one of the supreme achievements of world literature.
Why Also a poet & writer · Comparable historical impact
Emily Dickinson
80Emily Dickinson was an American poet who lived in near-seclusion and published almost nothing in her lifetime, yet whose nearly 1,800 original, compressed poems made her, after her death, one of the most important poets in the English language.
Why Also a poet & writer · Comparable historical impact