Virgil
1 book analyzed
Biography
Publius Vergilius Maro (70-19 BCE) was born near Mantua in northern Italy during the dying years of the Roman Republic. He lived through the civil wars — the assassination of Julius Caesar, the proscriptions, the Battle of Actium — and his family's farm was confiscated during the land redistribution to veterans. He became Rome's most celebrated poet through the Eclogues and the Georgics before spending the last eleven years of his life composing the Aeneid at Augustus's encouragement. He died at 50 in Brundisium, returning from a trip to Greece where he had visited sites described in the poem. On his deathbed, he reportedly ordered the manuscript burned, considering it unfinished. Augustus overruled the request and had it published. The poem that defined Roman civilization was saved against its author's wishes.