The Aeneid
Virgil (-19)
“Rome's founding myth as told by a poet who wanted it burned — an epic of duty that ends in an act of rage.”
Short Summary
Aeneas, a Trojan prince, flees the destruction of Troy carrying his father on his back and leading his young son by the hand. Commanded by fate to found a new civilization in Italy, he wanders the Mediterranean for seven years, is shipwrecked at Carthage where he falls in love with Queen Dido (then abandons her at the gods' command, driving her to suicide), descends into the Underworld to see Rome's future, and finally wages a brutal war in Latium against Turnus for the right to settle. The poem ends not with triumph but with Aeneas killing the defeated Turnus in a spasm of fury — an ending that has troubled readers for two thousand years.
Detailed Summary
The Aeneid opens in medias res with Aeneas and his fleet caught in a storm engineered by Juno, who hates the Trojans and knows their descendants will destroy her beloved Carthage. Neptune calms the seas, and the survivors wash ashore in North Africa, near the rising city of Carthage. Venus, Aeneas's...