Virgil reversed this sequence: the first half of his epic tells of the journey of the Trojan hero Aeneas after the fall of Troy in search of a homeland, the second half tells of Aeneas' arrival in Italy, of the war he was obliged to fight to establish his settlement, and of his victory over a local chieftain, Turnus. The Iliad is a story set in the war between Greeks and Trojans the Odyssey is the story of one Greek hero's homecoming after the sack of Troy. His masterstroke was to see in the story of Aeneas an opportunity to create a structural and thematic reworking of both the epics of Homer.

There were eighteen books, unfinished at their author's death, of which only fragments survive, but enough to show that Virgil often echoes the grand cadences and phrases of his predecessor.īut in composing the Aeneid Virgil deliberately departed from the annalistic tradition.

His Annales, as their name implies, was a chronological record of the story of Rome from the fall of Troy (Virgil's starting-point too, though his treatment is not chronological) to the death of Romulus. Earlier, Quintus Ennius (239–169 bc) had written heroic narrative epic, proudly claiming to be a reincarnation of Homer. Lucretius' great didactic epic De Rerum Natura (‘on the nature of things’) was an exposition of the physical universe according to the doctrine of Epicurus: although Virgil reacted against its materialism, he was much indebted to Lucretius' style and technique. It is not necessary for participants to have read the whole of the Aeneid, but a good overall view of the text would be useful.Other Latin poets before Virgil had written important large-scale hexameter compositions. This seminar will look at each of the 12 Books in turn analysing how they work as part of the text and how they fulfilled the remit given to Virgil by Augustus. The result is an extraordinarily powerful text which borrows scenes and motifs from Homer but has its own character and style. (Virgil, Aeneid 2.49) You can also use the standard abbreviations of authors names and titles of works as listed at the front of the Oxford Classical Dictionary. Virgil was called upon to create an epic and give Rome the kind of provenance enjoyed by the Greeks through the Iliad and the Aeneid. Many years later, Augustus had become Emperor following a period of civil unrest and needed to cement his position in power and show his people the extent of his pietas and dignitas. After the fall of Troy Aeneas escaped to his ships and set off on his epic journey to fulfil his destiny to found Rome. The Aeneid is the story of a man who lived over three thousand years ago.

The aeneid online