Publius Vergilius Maro (70 BCE – 19 BCE) – Roman poet, author of the Eclogues, Georgics, and the epic Aeneid. His works fused pastoral lyric and philosophy with Rome’s state myth. The Aeneid became the “national epic,” linking Rome to Trojan origins. In the Middle Ages Virgil was revered not only as a classic but also as a prophet; Dante cast him as the guide embodying reason and poetic greatness.
🏛️ Virgil is regarded as Rome’s national poet. 📜 The Aeneid became Rome’s “national epic,” legitimising the city’s divine descent from the Trojans. 👑 Emperor Augustus supported Virgil, seeing his poetry as ideological underpinning for his rule. 🖋️ The Georgics praised rural labour and harmony with nature – an unusual subject in antiquity. 🌍 Virgil shaped European culture: the Aeneid was a standard school text for centuries. 📚 Dante chose him as guide in the Divine Comedy, a symbol of reason and poetic greatness. 🎶 In the Middle Ages Virgil was even seen as a magician and prophet. 🕯️ On his deathbed, he asked for the Aeneid to be destroyed as incomplete, but Augustus ordered it preserved. 🏺 His tomb in Naples became a pilgrimage site for poets and humanists. 📖 The Aeneid inspired later national epics, including Ivan Kotliarevsky’s Ukrainian parody-epic Eneida. 🤔 Curious: medieval legends claimed Virgil made “mechanical flies” to protect Naples from real insects. 😄 Funny: classics students joke that the Aeneid is basically “the longest Roman fanfic of the Iliad.”