Virgil was born Publius Vergilius Maro in Andes, a village in northern Italy near Mantua. His father was a farmer. Virgil was thoroughly educated in Greek and Roman literature, rhetoric, and philosophy in the Italian cities of Cremona, Milan, Rome, and Naples. The patronage of Roman statesman Gaius Maecenas relieved him of financial cares and allowed him to devote himself wholly to literary pursuits and to study. He spent the greater part of his life at or near Naples and Nola, numbering among his intimate friends his patron Maecenas; Octavian, who became Emperor Augustus during Virgil's lifetime; and many prominent poets, among them Gaius Cornelius Gallus, Horace, and Lucius Varius Rufus. In 19 BC Virgil set out on a trip to Greece and Asia with the intention of revising his masterpiece, the Aeneid, already substantially completed, and then of devoting the remainder of his life to philosophical study. He met Augustus in Athens, Greece, and returned with him to Italy. Virgil w!

as taken ill before leaving Athens and died shortly after his arrival at Brundisium (now Brindisi

Turnus sees Aeneas leave and gains new hope; he enters the battle and deals out death left and right. Meanwhile Aeneas is helped back to camp, but the physician cannot remove the arrow. Seeing him suffer, Venus pities her son, and magically heals the wound and dislodges the arrow. Aeneas takes up his arms again and returns to the battle, scattering the Latin troops in terror before him. He and Turnus exchange kills, turning the tide of the battle back and forth. Suddenly, the Trojan commander realizes that Latinus' city has been left unguarded. He gathers a group of soldiers and runs on the city, sending it citizens into a panic. Queen Amata, seeing the Trojans within the city walls, loses all hope and hangs herself. Turnus hears the cries of suffering from the city and rushes back there. Not wanting his people to suffer further, he calls for the siege to end and for Aeneas to come and fight him, as they had agreed that morning. Aeneas meets him in the city's main courtyard, !

Among the adaptors of Greek culture, none was more brilliant, original, or influential than the poet Virgil. He faced a formidable challenge. Everyone who encountered Greek culture recognized how much Homer shaped it. To write Roman equivalent to The Iliad and The Odyssey required an ability to think, a way with words, and a storytelling capacity that would enable a poet to do for Rome what Homer had done for Greece. Few poets before Virgil had attempted this task; none had succeeded in it.

Dido writhes between fierce love and bitter anger; then, she suddenly appears calm, and tells Anna to build a great fire in the courtyard. There, the Queen says, she can put Aeneas out of her mind by burning all the clothes and weapons he left behind, and even the bed they slept on. Anna obeys, not realizing that Dido is in fact planning her own death--to make the fire her funeral pyre. As night falls, the Queen's grief leaves her sleepless. Aeneas does sleep, but in his dreams is again visited by Mercury, who tells him that has delayed too long already, and must leave at once. The Trojan awakens, calls his men to the ships, and they set sail. Dido sees the fleet leaving, and falls into her final despair; she can no longer bear to live. Running out to the courtyard, she climbs up on the pyre, and unsheathes Aeneas' own sword. The queen throws herself upon the blade, and with her last words curses her absent lover. As Anna and the other servant run up to the dying queen, Juno !

Just as the Aeneid's structure is modeled in part on the Iliad and the Odyssey, so is its style. However, Virgil's language and levels of descriptive imagery are far more complex than those found in Homer, and the poem is full of beautiful images, subtle allusions and a symbolism that lends it a richer, denser texture than the Greek epics.

Apollo - Son of Jupiter, god of the sun, who was born at Delos and helps the Trojans in their voyage when they stop there. Often pictured as an archer, causing many characters to invoke his name when about to fire a shaft in battle.

Latinus - The King of the Latins, who live in what is now mid-Italy, around the Tiber River. He is willing to allow Aeneas into his kingdom, but is not persuasive enough to convince the rest of his people, and war is the result.

ick escape with the Greek straggler, just as the other Cyclops came down to the shore. Now sailing around Sicily, they stopped at several harbors. The last of these was Drepanum, where Aeneas had to endure yet another unexpected loss: his father dies. The hero does not say how it happened.

, Italy). On his deathbed Virgil gave instructions that the Aeneid should be destroyed but, by Augustus's order, the poem was edited and published after Virgil's death by Roman poets Varius Rufus and Plotius Tucca.

nized work of Virgil were his ten Eclogues which he wrote from 45 to 37 B.C., and the four book Georgics written from 36 to 29 B.C. One of his last accomplishments was to "be among kings" w

Some common words found in the essay are:
King Latinus, Olympus Juno, Aeneas Seeing, Meanwhile Aeneas, Queen Amata, Queen Aeneas, Juno Aeneas, King Evander, Trojan War, Acestes Aeneas, trojan war, coast italy, king latinus, iliad odyssey, dido queen carthage, trojan hero, son jupiter, venus worried, near naples, trojan fortress, inside fortress, field front city, coast italy sicily, foundation aeneas lays, juno queen gods,
Approximate Word count = 9633
Approximate Pages = 39 (250 words per page double spaced)