Aeneid

2008

Private Collection. (Every effort has been made to contact copyright owners of the images displayed in this online exhibition. If any issues arise from their display, please contact Special Collections, University of Otago, special.collections@otago.ac.nz)

Oxford: Oxford University Press

Publius Vergilius Maro (70-19 BC), or Virgil, was born in the Lombardy region of Italy (at the top of the ‘boot’) and educated in Milan and Rome. Even though Roman writers tended to imitate Greek authors, and Virgil did indeed capitalise on Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, the Aeneid is a remarkable work in its own right. Virgil is described as having ‘made a unique contribution to the history and culture of the West’ (Griffin) and his Aeneid was widely read by his contemporaries and studied as part of a typical Roman education. The legacy and influence of Virgil’s Aeneid endures in the works of Bede (d. 735 AD), Dante (d. 1321), Milton (d. 1674), T. S. Eliot (d. 1965) and many others.