Virgil

{{short description|1st-century-BC Roman poet}} {{about|the ancient Roman poet|the grammarian|Virgilius Maro Grammaticus|other uses}} {{EngvarB|date=July 2022}} {{Use dmy dates|date=July 2022}} {{Infobox writer | image = Virgil mosaic in the Bardo National Museum (Tunis) (12241228546).jpg | caption = A 3rd-century Roman mosaic of Virgil seated between Clio and Melpomene (from Hadrumetum [Sousse], Tunisia) | pseudonym = | birth_name = Publius Vergilius Maro | birth_date = 15 October 70 BC | birth_place = Andes, Cisalpine Gaul, Roman Republic | death_date = 21 September 19 BC (aged 50) | death_place = Brundisium, Italy, Roman Empire | occupation = Poet | nationality = | period = | genre = {{hlist|Epic poetry|didactic poetry|pastoral poetry}} | subject = | movement = Augustan poetry | signature = | notable_works = ''Eclogues''<br />''Georgics''<br />''Aeneid'' }}

'''Publius Vergilius Maro''' ({{IPA|la-x-classic|ˈpuːbliʊs wɛrˈɡɪliʊs ˈmaroː|lang|link=yes}}; 15 October 70 BC{{snd}}21 September 19 BC), usually called '''Virgil''' or '''Vergil''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|v|ɜːr|dʒ|ɪ|l}} {{respell|VUR|jil}}) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: the ''Eclogues'' (or ''Bucolics''), the ''Georgics'', and the epic ''Aeneid''. Some minor poems, collected in the ''Appendix Vergiliana'', were attributed to him in ancient times, but modern scholars regard these as spurious, with the possible exception of some short pieces.

Already acclaimed in his lifetime as a classic author, Virgil rapidly replaced Ennius and other earlier authors as a standard school text, and stood as the most popular Latin poet through late antiquity, the Middle Ages, and early modernity, exerting major influence on Western literature. Geoffrey Chaucer assigned Virgil a uniquely prominent position in history in ''The House of Fame'' (1374–85), describing him as standing ''on a pilere / that was of tinned yren clere'' ("on a pillar that was of bright tin-plated iron"), and in the ''Divine Comedy'', in which Virgil appears as the author's guide through Hell and Purgatory, Dante pays tribute to Virgil with the words {{lang|it|tu se' solo colui da cu'io tolsi / lo bello stile che m'ha fatto onore}} (''Inf.'' I.86–7) ("thou art alone the one from whom I took the beautiful style that has done honour to me"). In the 20th century, T. S. Eliot famously began a lecture on the subject "What Is a Classic?" by asserting as self-evidently true that "whatever the definition we arrive at, it cannot be one which excludes Virgil – we may say confidently that it must be one which will expressly reckon with him".<ref>{{cite book |last=Eliot |first=T. S. |editor1-last=Chinitz |editor1-first=David E. |editor2-last=Schuchard |editor2-first=Ronald |chapter=What Is a Classic? |title=The Complete Prose of T. S. Eliot: The Critical Edition |volume=6: The War Years, 1940–1946 |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |pages=669–687}}</ref>

==Traditional biography== ===Biographical sources=== Biographical information about Virgil is transmitted chiefly in {{lang|la|vitae}} ("lives") of the poet, prefixed to commentaries on his work by Probus, Donatus, and Servius. The life given by Donatus is considered to closely reproduce the life of Virgil from a lost work of Suetonius on the lives of famous authors, just as Donatus used it for the poet's life in his commentary on Terence, where Suetonius is explicitly credited.{{sfn|Nettleship|1879|pp=28–31}}<ref name="Stok_Lives"/> The far shorter life given by Servius likewise seems to be an abridgement of Suetonius except for one or two statements.{{sfn|Nettleship|1879|p=31}} Varius is said to have written a memoir of his friend Virgil, and Suetonius likely drew on this lost work and other sources contemporary with the poet.{{sfn|Nettleship|1879|p=32}} A life written in verse by the grammarian Phocas (probably active in the 4th to 5th centuries AD) differs in some details from Donatus and Servius.<ref name="Stok_Lives"/> Henry Nettleship believed the life attributed to Probus may have drawn independently from the same sources as Suetonius,{{sfn|Nettleship|1879|p=31}} but it is attributed by other authorities to an anonymous author of the 5th or 6th century AD who drew on Donatus, Servius, and Phocas.<ref name="Stok_Lives"/> The Servian life was the principal source of Virgil's biography for medieval readers, while the Donatian life enjoyed a more limited circulation, and the lives of Phocas and Probus remained largely unknown.<ref name="Stok_Lives">{{cite encyclopedia |last=Stok |first=Fabio |title=Lives |encyclopedia=The Virgil Encyclopedia |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |year=2014 |pages=751–755 |doi=10.1002/9781118351352.wbve1235|isbn=978-1-4051-5498-7 }}</ref> [[File:Parco della Grotta di Posillipo5 (crop).jpg|thumb|upright=.8|Modern bust of Virgil at the entrance to his crypt in Naples]]

Although the commentaries record much factual information about Virgil, some of their evidence can be shown to rely on allegorizing and on inferences drawn from his poetry. For this reason, details regarding Virgil's life story are considered somewhat problematic.<ref name="Fowler, pg.1603">Fowler, Don. 1996. "Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro)". In ''The Oxford Classical Dictionary'' (3rd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.</ref>{{Rp|1602}}

===Family and birth=== According to the ancient {{lang|la|vitae}}, Publius Vergilius Maro was born on the Ides of October during the consulship of Pompey and Crassus (15 October 70 BC) in the village of Andes, near Mantua in Cisalpine Gaul (northern Italy, added to Italy proper during his lifetime).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.gottwein.de/latine/map/it_cis01.jpg |title=Map of Cisalpine Gaul |website=gottwein.de |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080528150009/http://www.gottwein.de/latine/map/it_cis01.jpg |archive-date=28 May 2008}}</ref>{{sfn|Brummer|1912|p=1}}{{sfn|Brummer|1912|p=73}} The Donatian life reports that some say Virgil's father was a potter, but most say he was an employee of an apparitor named Magius, whose daughter he married.{{sfn|Brummer|1912|p=1}} According to Phocas and Probus, the name of Virgil's mother was Magia Polla.{{sfn|Brummer|1912|p=50}}{{sfn|Brummer|1912|p=73}} The gentilicium of Virgil's maternal family, ''Magius'', and failure to distinguish the genitive form of this name (''Magi'') in Servius' life, from the genitive ''magi'' of the noun ''magus'' ("magician"), probably contributed to the rise of the medieval legend that Virgil's father was employed by a certain itinerant magician, and that Virgil was a magician.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |last=Morgan |first=John D. |title=Magius |encyclopedia=The Virgil Encyclopedia |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |year=2014 |page=781 |doi=10.1002/9781118351352.wbve1289|isbn=978-1-4051-5498-7 }}</ref>{{sfn|Nettleship|1879|p=7}}

Analysis of his name has led some to believe he descended from earlier Roman colonists. Modern speculation is not supported by narrative evidence from his writings or later biographers.<ref name="Stok_Lives" />

====Site of Andes==== A tradition of obscure origin, which was accepted by Dante,<ref>''Purg.'' XVIII.83</ref> identifies Andes with modern Pietole, two or three miles southeast of Mantua.{{sfn|Conway|1923|p=194}} The ancient biography attributed to Probus records that Andes was thirty Roman miles (about {{Convert|45|km|mi|abbr=|disp=or}}) from Mantua.{{sfn|Conway|1923|p=189}}{{sfn|Nettleship|1879|p=7}}{{sfn|Brummer|1912|p=73}} There are eight or nine references to the ''gens'' to which Vergil belonged, ''gens Vergilia'', in inscriptions from Northern Italy. Out of these, four are from townships remote from Mantua, three appear in inscriptions from Verona, and one in an inscription from Calvisano, a votive offering to the Matronae (a group of deities) by a woman called Vergilia, asking the goddesses to deliver from danger another woman, called Munatia.{{sfn|Conway|1923|p=190}} A tomb erected by a member of the ''gens Magia'', to which Virgil's mother belonged, is found at Casalpoglio, just {{Convert|12|km|mi}} from Calvisano. In 1915, G. E. K. Braunholtz drew attention to the proximity of these inscriptions to each other, and the fact that Calvisano is exactly 30 Roman miles from Mantua,{{sfn|Braunholtz|1915|p=108}} which led Robert Seymour Conway to theorize that these inscriptions have to do with relatives of Virgil, and Calvisano or Carpenedolo, not Pietole, is the site of Andes.{{sfn|Conway|1923|pp=190–4}} E. K. Rand defended the traditional site at Pietole, noting that Egnazio's 1507 edition of Probus's commentary, supposedly based on a "very ancient codex" from Bobbio Abbey which can no longer be found, says that Andes was three miles from Mantua, and arguing this is the correct reading.{{sfn|Rand|1930|pp=123–4, 127–42}} Conway replied that Egnazio's manuscript cannot be trusted to have been as ancient as Egnazio claimed it was, nor can we be sure that the reading "three" is not Egnazio's conjectural correction of his manuscript to harmonize it with the Pietole tradition, and all other evidence strongly favours the unanimous reading of the other witnesses of "thirty miles".{{sfn|Conway|1931|pp=71–5}} Other studies<ref>{{cite magazine | last = Nardoni | first = Davide | date = 1986 | title = La terra di Virgilio | language = it | magazine = Archeologia Viva | edition = January–February | pages = 71–76 }}</ref> claim that today's consideration for ancient ''Andes'' should be sought in the Casalpoglio area of Castel Goffredo.<ref>{{cite book |last=Gualtierotti |first=Piero |date=2008 |title=Castel Goffredo dalle origini ai Gonzaga|publisher=Banca di credito cooperativo di Castel Goffredo |location=Mantua |language=it |pages=96–100 }}</ref>

==== Spelling of name ==== By the 4th or 5th century AD the original spelling ''Vergilius'' had been changed to ''Virgilius'', and the latter spelling spread to modern European languages.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Comparetti|first1=Domenico|title=Vergil in the Middle Ages|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-0691026787|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-6wGE9Ylmj4C&pg=PR7|access-date=23 November 2016|language=en|year=1997}}</ref> This latter spelling persisted even though, as early as the 15th century, the classical scholar Poliziano had shown ''Vergilius'' to be the original spelling.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Wilson-Okamura|first1=David Scott|title=Virgil in the Renaissance|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0521198127|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WTaNUGscVhIC&pg=PA15|access-date=23 November 2016|language=en|year=2010}}</ref> Today, the anglicisations ''Vergil'' and ''Virgil'' are both considered acceptable.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Winkler|first1=Anthony C.|last2=McCuen-Metherell|first2=Jo Ray|title=Writing the Research Paper: A Handbook|publisher=Cengage Learning|isbn=978-1133169024|page=278|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PUMIAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA278|access-date=23 November 2016|language=en|year=2011}}</ref>

There is speculation that the spelling ''Virgilius'' might have arisen due to a pun, since ''virg-'' carries an echo of the Latin word for "wand" (''uirga''), Virgil being particularly associated with magic in the Middle Ages. There is also a possibility that ''virg-'' is meant to evoke the Latin ''virgo'' ("virgin"); this would be a reference to the fourth ''Eclogue'', which has a history of Christian, and specifically Messianic, interpretations.<ref group="lower-roman">For more discussion on the spelling of Virgil's name, see Flickinger, R. C. 1930. "Vergil or Virgil?". ''The Classical Journal'' 25(9):658–60.</ref>

===Childhood and education=== Virgil spent his boyhood in Cremona until his 15th year (55 BC), when he is said to have received the ''toga virilis'' on the very day Lucretius died.{{sfn|Brummer|1912|p=2}} From Cremona, he moved to Milan, and shortly afterwards to Rome.{{sfn|Brummer|1912|p=2}} After briefly considering a career in rhetoric and law, Virgil turned his talents to poetry.<ref>Damen, Mark. [2002] 2004. "[http://www.usu.edu/markdamen/1320AncLit/chapters/11verg.htm Vergil and 'The Aeneid']". Ch. 11 in ''A Guide to Writing in History and Classics''. Utah State University. [https://web.archive.org/web/20170216160433/http://www.usu.edu/markdamen/1320AncLit/chapters/11verg.htm Archived] from the original on 16 February 2017. Retrieved 28 May 2020.</ref> Despite the biographers' statements that Virgil's family was of modest means, these accounts of his education, as well as of his ceremonial assumption of the ''toga virilis'', suggest his father was a wealthy equestrian landowner.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Gordon |first=Mary L. |title=The Family of Vergil |journal=The Journal of Roman Studies |volume=24 |issue=1 |date=1934 |pages=1–12|doi=10.2307/297009 |jstor=297009 }}</ref>

He is said to have been tall and stout, with a swarthy complexion and a rustic appearance.{{sfn|Brummer|1912|p=2}} Virgil seems to have suffered bad health throughout his life and in some ways lived the life of an invalid. Schoolmates considered Virgil shy and reserved, and he was nicknamed "Parthenias" ("virgin") because of his aloofness.

===Poetic career=== The biographical tradition asserts that Virgil began the hexameter ''Eclogues'' (or ''Bucolics'') in 42 BC and it is thought the collection was published around 39–38 BC, although this is controversial.<ref name="Fowler, pg.1603" />{{Rp|1602}} After defeating the army led by the assassins of Julius Caesar in the Battle of Philippi (42 BC), Octavian tried to pay off his veterans with land expropriated from towns in northern Italy, which—according to tradition—included an estate near Mantua belonging to Virgil. The loss of Virgil's family farm and the attempt through poetic petitions to regain his property, were seen as his motives in the composition of the ''Eclogues''. This is now thought to be an unsupported inference from interpretations of the ''Eclogues''. In ''Eclogues'' 1 and 9, Virgil indeed dramatizes the contrasting feelings caused by the brutality of the land expropriations through pastoral idiom, but offers no indisputable evidence of the supposed biographic incident.<ref>Wilkinson, L. P. (1966). [https://www.jstor.org/stable/4475419 "Virgil and the Evictions"]. ''Hermes'' '''94''' (3): 320–321.</ref>

Sometime after the publication of the ''Eclogues'', probably before 37 BC,<ref name="Fowler, pg.1603"/>{{Rp|1603}} Virgil became part of the circle of Gaius Maecenas, Octavian's capable political adviser, who sought to counter sympathy for Antony among the leading families by rallying Roman literary figures to Octavian's side. Virgil came to know many other leading literary figures of the time, including Horace, in whose poetry he is often mentioned,<ref>Horace, ''Satires'' 1.5, 1.6; Horace, ''Odes'' 1.3.</ref> and Varius Rufus, who later helped finish the ''Aeneid''. At Maecenas's insistence, according to the tradition, Virgil spent the ensuing years (perhaps 37–29 BC) on the long dactylic hexameter poem called the ''Georgics'' (from Greek, "On Working the Earth"), which he dedicated to Maecenas.

Virgil worked on the ''Aeneid'' during the last eleven years of his life (29–19 BC), commissioned, according to Propertius, by Augustus.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Avery|first1=W. T.|year=1957|title=Augustus and the "Aeneid"|journal=The Classical Journal|volume=52|issue=5|pages=225–29}}</ref> According to the tradition, Virgil travelled to the senatorial province of Achaea in Greece, in about 19 BC, to revise the ''Aeneid''. After meeting Augustus in Athens and deciding to return home, Virgil caught a fever while visiting a town near Megara. After crossing to Italy by ship, weakened with disease, Virgil died in Apulia on 21 September 19 BC. Augustus ordered Virgil's literary executors, Lucius Varius Rufus and Plotius Tucca, to disregard Virgil's wish that the poem be burned, instead ordering it to be published with as few editorial changes as possible.<ref>{{cite EB1911|wstitle=Virgil|volume=28|pages=111–116|last1=Sellar|first1=William Young |author-link1=William Young Sellar |last2=Glover|first2=Terrot Reaveley|author2-link=Terrot Reaveley Glover|last3=Bryant|first3=Margaret}}</ref>{{rp|112}}

==== Burial and tomb ==== {{main|Virgil's tomb}}

[[File:Joseph_Wright_of_Derby._Virgil's_Tomb,_with_the_Figure_of_Silius_Italicus._1779.jpg|thumb|Painting of ''Virgil's Tomb, with the Figure of Silius Italicus'' by Joseph Wright of Derby]]

After his death at Brundisium according to Donatus,{{sfn|Brummer|1912|p=8}} or Taranto according to late manuscripts of Servius,{{sfn|Brummer|1912|p=72}} Virgil's remains were transported to Naples, where his tomb was engraved with an epitaph he had composed: ''{{lang|la|Mantua me genuit; Calabri rapuere; tenet nunc Parthenope. Cecini pascua, rura, duces}}'';{{sfn|Brummer|1912|p=8}}{{sfn|Brummer|1912|p=72}} "Mantua gave me life, the Calabrians took it away, Naples holds me now; I sang of pastures, farms, and commanders." (transl. Bernard Knox) Martial reports that Silius Italicus annexed the site to his estate (11.48, 11.50), and Pliny the Younger says that Silius "would visit Virgil's tomb as if it were a temple" (''Epistulae'' 3.7.8).<ref name="Berenbeim_Tomb">{{cite encyclopedia |last=Berenbeim |first=Jessica |title=Virgil, tomb of |encyclopedia=The Virgil Encyclopedia |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |year=2014 |page=1361 |doi=10.1002/9781118351352.wbve2205|isbn=978-1-4051-5498-7 }}</ref>

[[File:Parco della Grotta di Posillipo3.jpg|alt=Tomb of Virgil in Naples, Italy|thumb|Virgil's tomb in Naples, Italy]]

The structure known as Virgil's tomb is found at the entrance of an ancient Roman tunnel ({{lang|it|grotta vecchia}}) in Piedigrotta, a district {{cvt|3|km|order=flip}} from the centre of Naples, near the Mergellina harbour, on the road heading north along the coast to Pozzuoli. While Virgil was already the object of literary admiration and veneration before his death, in the Middle Ages his name became associated with miraculous powers, and for a couple of centuries his tomb was the destination of pilgrimages and veneration.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_K0UJAAAAIAAJ| title=The Book of Days | publisher=W and R Chambers | author=Chambers, Robert | year=1832 | location=London | pages=366}}</ref> A famous medieval legend that Paul the Apostle had visited Virgil's tomb and wept that so great a poet had died without the Christian faith is referenced in a liturgical hymn said to have been used on Paul's feast day at Mantua:<ref>{{cite book |last=Symonds |first=John Addington |authorlink=John Addington Symonds |title=Renaissance in Italy |volume=[II]: The Revival of Learning |location=New York |publisher=Henry Holt and Company |year=1908 |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=QHpEAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA63 63]}}</ref>

{| | <poem> Ad Maronis mausoleum Ductus, fudit super eum ::Piæ rorem lacrymæ; Quem te, inquit, reddidissem, Si te vivum invenissem, ::Poetarum maxime! </poem> | <poem> When to Maro's tomb they brought him, Tender grief and pity wrought him ::To bedew the stone with tears; "What a saint I might have crowned thee Had I only living found thee, ::Poet first and without peers!" </poem> |}

However, Johann Friedrich Heinrich Schlosser was unable to find a manuscript of this hymn, and reported that he had only heard these verses recited from memory by a brother who had lived at Mantua.<ref>{{cite book |last=Schlosser |first=Johann Friedrich Heinrich |authorlink=Johann Friedrich Heinrich Schlosser |title=Die Kirche in ihren Liedern durch alle Jahrhunderte |volume=I |location=Freiburg im Breisgau |publisher=Herder |year=1863 |language=de |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=QbYvFMaBGMcC&pg=PA474 474]}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Daniel |first=Hermann Adalbert |title=Thesaurus hymnologicus |volume=V |location=Leipzig |year=1856 |pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=kMwHrIzQCrYC&pg=PA266 266–7]}}</ref>

Through the 19th century, the supposed tomb attracted travellers on the Grand Tour, and still draws visitors.<ref name="Berenbeim_Tomb"/>

==Works== ===Early works=== {{Main|Appendix Vergiliana}}

According to the commentators, Virgil received his first education when he was five and later went to Cremona, Milan, and finally Rome to study rhetoric, medicine, and astronomy, which he would abandon for philosophy. From Virgil's admiring references to the neoteric writers Asinius Pollio and Cinna, it has been inferred that he was, for a time, associated with Catullus's neoteric circle. According to the ''Catalepton'', he began to write poetry while in the Epicurean school of Siro in Naples. A group of small works attributed to the youthful Virgil by the commentators survive collected under the title ''Appendix Vergiliana'', but are considered spurious by scholars. One, the ''Catalepton'', consists of fourteen short poems,<ref name="Fowler, pg.1603" />{{Rp|1602}} some of which may be Virgil's, and a short narrative poem ''Culex'' ("The Gnat"), was attributed to Virgil as early as the 1st century AD.

===''Eclogues''=== {{Main article|Eclogues}}

thumb|Page from the beginning of the ''Eclogues'' in the 5th-century ''Vergilius Romanus''

The ''Eclogues'' (from the Greek for "selections") are a group of ten poems roughly modelled on the bucolic ("pastoral" or "rural") poetry of the Hellenistic poet Theocritus, which were written in dactylic hexameter. While some readers have identified Virgil with various characters and their vicissitudes, whether gratitude by an old rustic to a new god (''Ecl''. 1), frustrated love by a rustic singer for a distant boy (his master's pet, ''Ecl''. 2), or a master singer's claim to have composed several eclogues (''Ecl''. 5), modern scholars largely reject such efforts to garner biographical details from fiction, preferring to interpret an author's characters and themes as illustrations of contemporary life and thought.

The ten ''Eclogues'' present traditional pastoral themes with a fresh perspective. Eclogues 1 and 9 address the land confiscations and their effects on the Italian countryside. 2 and 3 are pastoral and erotic, discussing homosexual love (''Ecl''. 2) and attraction toward people of any gender (''Ecl''. 3). ''Eclogue'' 4, addressed to Asinius Pollio, the so-called "Messianic Eclogue", uses the imagery of the golden age in connection with the birth of a child (the child's identity has been debated). 5 and 8 describe the myth of Daphnis in a song contest, 6, the cosmic and mythological song of Silenus; 7, a heated poetic contest, and 10 the sufferings of the contemporary elegiac poet Cornelius Gallus. Virgil in his ''Eclogues'' is credited with establishing Arcadia as a poetic ideal that still resonates in literature and visual arts<ref>{{cite book |last1=Snell |first1=Bruno |title=The Discovery of the Mind: the Greek Origins of European Thought |date=1960 |publisher=Harper |pages=281–282}}</ref> and with setting the stage for the development of Latin pastoral by Calpurnius Siculus, Nemesianus and later writers.

===''Georgics''=== {{Main|Georgics}}

[[File:Horace, Virgil and Varius at the house of Maecenas.jpg|thumb|Horace, Virgil and Varius at the house of Maecenas, by Charles Jalabert]] [[File:Przygotowanie narzędzi rolniczych.jpg|thumb|upright=1.6|1680s illustration of a passage from the ''Georgics'', by Jerzy Siemiginowski-Eleuter]]

The ostensible theme of the ''Georgics'' is instruction in the methods of running a farm. In handling this, Virgil follows in the didactic ("how to") tradition of the Greek poet Hesiod's ''Works and Days'' and works of the later Hellenistic poets. The four books of the ''Georgics'' focus respectively on: # raising crops; # raising trees; # livestock and horses; # beekeeping and the qualities of bees.<ref>Virgil. [https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Eclogues_and_Georgics_(Mackail_1910)/Georgics_4 ''Georgics'', Book IV], trans. J. W. Mackail. ''Wikisource''. Retrieved 20 June 2025.</ref>

Well-known passages include the beloved ''Laus Italiae'' of Book 2, the prologue description of the temple in Book 3, and the description of the plague at the end of Book 3. Book 4 concludes with a long mythological narrative, in the form of an ''epyllion'', which describes vividly the discovery of beekeeping by Aristaeus, and the story of Orpheus' journey to the underworld. Ancient scholars, such as Servius, conjectured that the Aristaeus episode replaced, at the emperor's request, a long section in praise of Virgil's friend, the poet Gallus, who was disgraced by Augustus, and committed suicide in 26 BC.<ref>Cassius Dio. [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/53*.html#23 ''Roman History'', LIII, 23], trans. Earnest Cary. ''LacusCurtius''. Retrieved 20 June 2025.</ref>

The tone of the ''Georgics'' wavers between optimism and pessimism, sparking critical debate on the poet's intentions,<ref name="Fowler, pg.1603" />{{Rp|1605}} but the work lays the foundations for later didactic poetry. Virgil and Maecenas are said to have taken turns reading the ''Georgics'' to Octavian upon his return from defeating Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC.

===''Aeneid''=== {{Main|Aeneid}}

The ''Aeneid'' is widely considered Virgil's finest work, and one of the most important poems in the history of literature (T. S. Eliot referred to it as "the classic of all Europe").<ref>Eliot, T. S. 1944. [http://bracchiumforte.com/PDFs/tseliot.pdf ''What Is a Classic?'']. London: Faber & Faber. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191115123753/http://bracchiumforte.com/PDFs/tseliot.pdf |date=15 November 2019 }}.</ref> The work, modelled after Homer's ''Iliad'' and ''Odyssey'', chronicles the journey of a warrior and refugee of the Trojan War, named Aeneas, as he struggles to fulfill his destiny. After fleeing the sack of Troy, he travels to Italy, where he battles with Turnus, and his descendants Romulus and Remus found the city of Rome. [[File:Terracotta Aeneas MAN Naples 110338.jpg|thumb|left|upright=.7|A 1st-century terracotta expressing the ''pietas'' of Aeneas, who carries his aged father and leads his young son]]

The epic poem consists of 12 books in dactylic hexameter verse. The ''Aeneid''<nowiki>'</nowiki>s first six books describe the journey of Aeneas from Troy to Rome. Virgil made use of several models in the composition of his epic;<ref name="Fowler, pg.1603" />{{Rp|1603}} Homer, the pre-eminent author of classical epic, is everywhere present, but Virgil also makes special use of the Latin poet Ennius and the Hellenistic poet Apollonius of Rhodes, among other writers to whom he alludes. Although the ''Aeneid'' casts itself firmly into the epic mode, it often expands the genre by including elements of other genres, such as tragedy and aetiological poetry. Ancient commentators noted that Virgil seems to divide the ''Aeneid'' into two sections based on the poetry of Homer; the first six books were viewed as employing the ''Odyssey'' as a model while the last six were connected to the ''Iliad''.<ref>Jenkyns, p. 53.</ref>

Book 1,<ref group="lower-roman">For a succinct summary, see [http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~loxias/aeneid.htm Globalnet.co.uk] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091218115544/http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~loxias/aeneid.htm |date=18 December 2009 }}</ref> at the head of the Odyssean section, opens with a storm which Juno, Aeneas's enemy throughout the poem, stirs up against the fleet. The storm drives the hero to the coast of Carthage, which was Rome's deadliest foe. The queen, Dido, welcomes the ancestor of the Romans, and under the influence of the gods falls deeply in love with him. At a banquet in Book 2, Aeneas tells the story of the sack of Troy, the death of his wife, and his escape, to the enthralled Carthaginians, while in Book 3 he recounts to them his wanderings over the Mediterranean in search of a suitable new home. Jupiter in Book 4 recalls the lingering Aeneas to his duty to found a new city, and he slips away from Carthage, leaving Dido to commit suicide, cursing Aeneas and calling down revenge in symbolic anticipation of the fierce wars between Carthage and Rome. In Book 5, funeral games are celebrated for Aeneas's father Anchises, who had died a year before. On reaching Cumae, in Italy in Book 6, Aeneas consults the Cumaean Sibyl, who conducts him through the Underworld where Aeneas meets the dead Anchises who reveals Rome's destiny to his son.<ref>{{Citation |last1=Virgil |author-link=Virgil |last2=Fitzgerald |first2=Robert (trans.) |title=The Aeneid |publisher=Random House |location=New York |year=1983 |isbn=978-0-394-52827-4|page=6.1203–1210}} </ref>

Book 7, beginning the Iliadic half, opens with an address to the muse and recounts Aeneas's arrival in Italy and betrothal to Lavinia, daughter of King Latinus. Lavinia had already been promised to Turnus, the king of the Rutulians, who is roused to war by the Fury Allecto and Amata, Lavinia's mother. In Book 8, Aeneas allies with King Evander, who occupies the future site of Rome, and is given new armour and a shield depicting Roman history. Book 9 records an assault by Nisus and Euryalus on the Rutulians; Book 10, the death of Evander's young son Pallas; and 11 the death of the Volscian warrior princess Camilla and the decision to settle the war with a duel between Aeneas and Turnus. The ''Aeneid'' ends in Book 12 with the taking of Latinus's city, the death of Amata, and Aeneas's defeat and killing of Turnus, whose pleas for mercy are spurned. The final book ends with the image of Turnus's soul lamenting as it flees to the underworld.

===Reception of the ''Aeneid''=== [[File:Virgil Reading the Aeneid.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|''Virgil Reading the'' Aeneid ''to Augustus, Octavia, and Livia'' by Jean-Baptiste Wicar, Art Institute of Chicago]]

Critics of the ''Aeneid'' focus on a variety of issues.<ref group="lower-roman">For a bibliography and summary see Fowler, pp. 1605–1606.</ref> The tone as a whole is a particular matter of debate; some see the poem as ultimately pessimistic and politically subversive to the Augustan regime, while others view it as a celebration of the new imperial dynasty. Virgil makes use of the symbolism of the regime, and some scholars see strong associations between Augustus and Aeneas, the one as founder and the other as re-founder of Rome. A strong teleology, or drive towards a climax, has been detected. The ''Aeneid'' is full of prophecies about the future of Rome, the deeds of Augustus, his ancestors, and famous Romans, and the Carthaginian Wars; the shield of Aeneas even depicts Augustus's victory at Actium against Mark Antony and Cleopatra in 31 BC. A further focus of study is the character of Aeneas. As the protagonist, Aeneas seems to waver constantly between his emotions and commitment to his prophetic duty to found Rome; critics note the breakdown of Aeneas's emotional control in the last sections of the poem where the "pious" and "righteous" Aeneas mercilessly slaughters Turnus.

The ''Aeneid'' appears to have been a great success. Virgil is said to have recited Books 2, 4, and 6 to Augustus;<ref name="Fowler, pg.1603" />{{Rp|1603}} and Book 6 apparently caused the emperor's sister Octavia to faint. Although the truth of this claim is subject to scholarly scepticism, it has served as a basis for art, such as Jean-Baptiste Wicar's ''Virgil Reading the Aeneid''.

Some lines of the poem were left unfinished, and the whole was unedited, at Virgil's death in 19 BC. As a result, the text of the ''Aeneid'' that exists may contain faults which Virgil was planning to correct before publication. However, the only obvious imperfections are a few lines of verse that are metrically unfinished, i.e. not a complete line of dactylic hexameter. Some scholars have argued that Virgil deliberately left these incomplete for dramatic effect.<ref>Miller, F. J. 1909. "Evidences of Incompleteness in the "Aeneid" of Vergil". ''The Classical Journal'' 4(11):341–55. {{JSTOR|3287376}}.</ref> Other alleged imperfections are subject to debate.

== Legacy and reception == === Antiquity === [[File:RomanVirgilFolio014rVergilPortrait.jpg|thumb|A 5th-century portrait of Virgil from the Vergilius Romanus]]

The works of Virgil, almost from the moment of their publication, revolutionized Latin poetry. The ''Eclogues'', ''Georgics'', and above all the ''Aeneid'' became standard texts in school curricula with which all educated Romans were familiar. Poets following Virgil often refer intertextually to his works to generate meaning in their poetry. The Augustan poet Ovid parodies the opening lines of the ''Aeneid'' in ''Amores'' 1.1.1–2, and his summary of the Aeneas story in Book 14 of the ''Metamorphoses'', the so-called "mini-Aeneid", has been viewed as an important example of post-Virgilian response to the epic genre. Lucan's epic, the ''Bellum Civile'', has been considered an anti-Virgilian epic, disposing of the divine mechanism, treating historical events, and diverging from Virgilian epic practice. The Flavian-era poet Statius in his 12-book epic ''Thebaid'' engages closely with the poetry of Virgil; in his epilogue he advises his poem not to "rival the divine ''Aeneid'', but follow afar and ever venerate its footsteps".<ref>Theb.12.816–817</ref> Virgil finds one of his most ardent admirers in Silius Italicus. With almost every line of his epic ''Punica'', Silius references Virgil.

Virgil also found commentators in antiquity. Servius, a commentator of the 4th century AD, based his work on the commentary of Donatus. Servius's commentary provides us with a great deal of information about Virgil's life, sources, and references; however, many modern scholars find the variable quality of his work and the often simplistic interpretations frustrating.<ref name="Stok_Lives" />

=== Late antiquity === [[File:Vergil tomb inscription.jpg|alt=The verse inscription at Virgil's tomb.|thumb|The verse inscription at Virgil's tomb was supposedly composed by the poet himself: ''Mantua me genuit, Calabri rapuere, tenet nunc Parthenope. Cecini pascua, rura, duces.'' ("Mantua gave me life, the Calabrians took it away, Naples holds me now; I sang of pastures, farms, and commanders" [transl. Bernard Knox])]]

Even as the Western Roman Empire collapsed, literate men acknowledged that Virgil was a master poet; Augustine of Hippo confessed how he had wept at reading the death of Dido.<ref>K. W. Gransden, ''Virgil: The Aeneid'' (Cambridge 1990), p. 105.</ref> The best-known surviving manuscripts of Virgil's works include manuscripts from late antiquity, such as the ''Vergilius Augusteus'', the ''Vergilius Vaticanus'' and the ''Vergilius Romanus''.

=== Middle Ages === Gregory of Tours read Virgil, whom he quotes in several places, along with other Latin poets, though he cautions that "we ought not to relate their lying fables, lest we fall under sentence of eternal death".<ref>{{cite book|author=Gregory of Tours|year=1916|title=The History of the Franks|translator-first=E.|translator-last=Brehaut|location=New York|publisher=Columbia University Press|oclc=560532077|page=xiii}}</ref> In the Renaissance of the 12th century, Alexander Neckham placed the "divine" ''Aeneid'' on his standard arts curriculum,<ref>Helen Waddell, ''The Wandering Scholars'' (Fontana, 1968), p. 19.</ref> and Dido became the romantic heroine of the age.<ref>Waddell, pp. 22–3.</ref> Monks like Maiolus of Cluny might repudiate what they called "the luxurious eloquence of Virgil",<ref>Waddell, p. 101.</ref> but they could not deny the power of his appeal.

Dante presents Virgil as his guide through Hell and the greater part of Purgatory in the ''Divine Comedy''.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Divine Comedy (The Inferno, The Purgatorio, and The Paradiso)|last=Alighieri|first=Dante|publisher=Berkley|year=2003|isbn=978-0451208637|location=New York}}</ref> He also mentions Virgil in ''De vulgari eloquentia'', as one of the four ''regulati poetae'' along with Ovid, Lucan and Statius (ii, vi, 7).

=== Renaissance and early modernity === The Renaissance saw several authors inspired to write epic in Virgil's wake: Edmund Spenser called himself the English Virgil; ''Paradise Lost'' was influenced by the ''Aeneid''; and later artists influenced include Berlioz and Hermann Broch.<ref>Gransden, pp. 108–111.</ref>

In the early modern period until the middle of the 18th century, Virgil was often regarded as the preeminent poet that European poets should try to emulate. A shift began in Germany when classical Greek culture rose in prestige at the expense of Roman, notably through the influence of Johann Joachim Winckelmann. In spite of a loss in prestige, Virgil continued to be widely read and studied, and had significant influence also on German-language writers from the second half of the 18th century, such as Salomon Gessner, Maler Müller, Johann Heinrich Voß, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Novalis.<ref>{{cite book |last=Atherton |first=Geoffrey |year=2006 |title=The Decline and Fall of Virgil in Eighteenth-Century Germany |location=Rochester, New York |publisher=Camden House |isbn=978-1-57113-306-9 }}</ref>

===Legends=== [[File:Lucas van Leyden 034.jpg|thumb|''Virgil in His Basket'', Lucas van Leyden, 1525 (basket top left)]] The legend of "Virgil in his basket" arose in the Middle Ages, and is often seen in art and mentioned in literature as part of the Power of Women literary topos, demonstrating the disruptive force of female attractiveness on men. In this story Virgil became enamoured of a beautiful woman, sometimes described as the emperor's daughter or mistress and called Lucretia. She played him along and agreed to an assignation at her house, which he was to sneak into at night, by climbing into a large basket let down from a window. When he did so he was hoisted only halfway up the wall and left trapped there into the next day, exposed to public ridicule. The story paralleled that of Phyllis riding Aristotle. Among other artists depicting the scene, Lucas van Leyden made a woodcut and later an engraving.<ref>Snyder, James. 1985. ''Northern Renaissance Art''. US: Harry N. Abrams, {{ISBN|0136235964}}. pp. 461–62.</ref>

Partially as a result of his so-called "Messianic" Eclogue 4{{snd}}interpreted from the 3rd century by Christian thinkers to have predicted the birth of Jesus{{snd}}Virgil was in later antiquity imputed to have the magical abilities of a seer. Eclogue 4 describes the birth of a boy ushering in a golden age. In consequence, Virgil came to be seen on a similar level to the Hebrew prophets of the Bible as one who had heralded Christianity.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Ziolkowski|first1=Jan M.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MpsPueOp8cUC|title=The Virgilian Tradition: The First Fifteen Hundred Years|last2=Putnam|first2=Michael C. J.|date=2008|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0300108224|pages=xxxiv-xxxv|access-date=11 November 2013}}</ref> ''The Jewish Encyclopedia'' argues that medieval legends about the golem may have been inspired by Virgilian legends about the poet's apocryphal power to bring inanimate objects to life.<ref>{{Jewish Encyclopedia |no-prescript=1 |title=Golem}}</ref>

Possibly as early as the 2nd century AD, and into the Middle Ages, Virgil's works were seen as having magical properties and used for divination. In what became known as the ''Sortes Vergilianae'' ("Virgilian Lots"), passages would be selected at random and interpreted to answer questions.<ref name=Ziolkowskixxxiv>{{cite book|last1=Ziolkowski|first1=Jan M.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MpsPueOp8cUC|title=The Virgilian Tradition: The First Fifteen Hundred Years|last2=Putnam|first2=Michael C. J.|date=2008|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0300108224|page=xxxiv|access-date=11 November 2013}}</ref> In a similar vein, Macrobius in the ''Saturnalia'' credits the work of Virgil as the embodiment of human knowledge and experience, mirroring the Greek conception of Homer.<ref name="Fowler, pg.1603" />{{Rp|1603}} In the 12th century, starting around Naples but eventually spreading throughout Europe, a tradition developed in which Virgil was regarded as a great magician. Legends about Virgil and his magical powers remained popular for over two hundred years, arguably becoming as prominent as his writings.<ref name=Ziolkowskixxxiv/> In medieval Wales, the Welsh version of his name, ''Fferyllt'' or ''Pheryllt'', became a generic term for magic-worker, and survives in its word for pharmacist, ''fferyllydd''.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Ziolkowski|first1=Jan M.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MpsPueOp8cUC|title=The Virgilian Tradition: The First Fifteen Hundred Years|last2=Putnam|first2=Michael C. J.|date=2008|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0300108224|pages=101–102|access-date=11 November 2013}}</ref>

== Notes == {{Reflist|group=lower-roman}}

== Citations == {{Reflist|30em}}

===Works cited=== * {{cite journal |last=Braunholtz |first=G. E. K. |title=The Nationality of Vergil |journal=The Classical Review |volume=29 |issue=4 |date=June 1915 |pages=104–110 |doi=10.1017/S0009840X00048368 |jstor=696876}} * {{cite book |editor-last=Brummer |editor-first=Jacob |title=Vitae Vergilianae |location=Leipzig |publisher=B. G. Teubner |year=1912 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iqkNAAAAIAAJ}} * {{cite journal |last=Conway |first=R. S. |author-link=Robert Seymour Conway |title=Where Was Vergil's Farm? |journal=Bulletin of the John Rylands Library |volume=7 |issue=2 |date=January 1923 |pages=184–210 |doi=10.7227/BJRL.7.2.2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m2caAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA184|url-access=subscription }} * {{cite journal |last=Conway |first=R. S. |title=Further Considerations on the Site of Vergil's Farm |journal=The Classical Quarterly |volume=25 |issue=2 |date=April 1931 |pages=65–76 |doi=10.1017/S0009838800013483}} * {{cite book |last=Nettleship |first=H. |author-link=Henry Nettleship |title=Ancient Lives of Vergil |location=Oxford |publisher=Clarendon Press |year=1879 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_STSsb7otPcC}} * {{cite book |last=Rand |first=Edward Kennard |author-link=Edward Kennard Rand |title=In Quest of Virgil's Birthplace |location=Cambridge, MA |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=1930|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EKAyAQAAIAAJ}}

==Further reading== * Anderson, W. S., and L. N. Quartarone. 2002. ''Approaches to Teaching Vergil's Aeneid''. New York: Modern Language Association. * Buckham, Philip Wentworth, Joseph Spence, Edward Holdsworth, William Warburton, and John Jortin. 1825. [https://archive.org/details/miscellaneavirg00jortgoog ''Miscellanea Virgiliana: In Scriptis Maxime Eruditorum Virorum Varie Dispersa, in Unum Fasciculum Collecta'']. Cambridge: Printed for W. P. Grant. * Conway, R. S. [1914] 1915. "[https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc2.ark:/13960/t6445ps8d&view=1up&seq=5 The Youth of Vergil]". ''Bulletin of the John Rylands Library'', July 1915. * {{cite book |last=Conway |first=Robert Seymour |title=Harvard Lectures on the Vergilian Age |location=Cambridge, MA |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=1928 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fUt-rtli_V0C}} * Farrell, J. 1991. ''Vergil's Georgics and the Traditions of Ancient Epic: The Art of Allusion in Literary History''. New York: Oxford University Press. * —2001. "The Vergilian Century". ''Vergilius (1959–)'' 47:11–28. {{JSTOR|41587251}}. * Farrell, J., and Michael C. J. Putnam, eds. 2010. ''A Companion to Vergil's Aeneid and Its Tradition'', (''Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World''). Chichester, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. * Fletcher, K. F. B. 2014. ''Finding Italy: Travel, Nation and Colonization in Vergil's 'Aeneid<nowiki>'</nowiki>''. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. * Hardie, Philip R., ed. 1999. ''Virgil: Critical Assessments of Ancient Authors'' 1–4. New York: Routledge. * Henkel, John. 2014. "Vergil Talks Technique: Metapoetic Arboriculture in 'Georgics' 2". ''Vergilius (1959–)'' 60:33–66. {{JSTOR|43185985}}. * Horsfall, N. 2016. ''The Epic Distilled: Studies in the Composition of the Aeneid''. Oxford: Oxford University Press. *{{cite book |last1=Keith |first1=Alison |last2=Myers |first2=Micah Y. |title=Vergil and Elegy |date=2023 |publisher=University of Toronto Press |location=Toronto |isbn=9781487547950}} * Mack, S. 1978. ''Patterns of Time in Vergil''. Hamden: Archon Books. * Panoussi, V. 2009. ''Greek Tragedy in Vergil's "Aeneid": Ritual, Empire, and Intertext''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. * Quinn, S., ed. 2000. ''Why Vergil? A Collection of Interpretations''. Wauconda: Bolchazy-Carducci. * Rossi, A. 2004. ''Contexts of War: Manipulation of Genre in Virgilian Battle Narrative''. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. * Sondrup, Steven P. 2009. "Virgil: From Farms to Empire: Kierkegaard's Understanding of a Roman Poet". In ''Kierkegaard and the Roman World'', edited by J. B. Stewart. Farnham: Ashgate. * Syed, Y. 2005. ''Vergil's Aeneid and the Roman Self: Subject and Nation in Literary Discourse''. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. * Syson, A. 2013. ''Fama and Fiction in Vergil's 'Aeneid{{'}}''. Columbus: Ohio State University Press. ==External links== {{Sister project links|b=no|s=Author:Virgil}} {{Library resources box |by=yes |onlinebooks=yes |others=yes |about=yes |label=Virgil |viaf= |lccn= |lcheading= |wikititle= }} '''Collected works''' * {{wikisourcelang-inline|la|Scriptor:Publius Vergilius Maro|Publius Vergilius Maro}} * {{StandardEbooks|Standard Ebooks URL=https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/virgil}} * {{Gutenberg author | id=129}} * {{Internet Archive author |search=("Virgil" OR "Vergil" OR "Publius Vergilius Maro")}} * {{Librivox author |id=6359}} * [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/searchresults?q=P.+Vergilius+Maro Works of Virgil] at the Perseus Digital Library{{snd}}Latin texts, translations, and commentaries ** ''Aeneid'', ''Eclogues'', and ''Georgics'' translated by J. C. Greenough, 1900 ** ''Aeneid'', translated by T. C. Williams, 1910 ** ''—'' translated by John Dryden, 1697 * [http://www.theoi.com/Text/VirgilEclogues.html Works of Virgil] at Theoi Project ** ''Aeneid'', ''Eclogues'' and ''Georgics'', translated by H. R. Fairclough, 1916 * [http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/virgil/index.htm Works of Virgil] at Internet Sacred Texts Archive ** ''Aeneid'', translated by John Dryden, 1697 ** ''Eclogues'' and ''Georgics'', translated by J. W. MacKail, 1934 * [http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/verg.html P. Vergilius Maro] at The Latin Library * [http://www.intratext.com/Catalogo/Autori/AUT392.HTM Virgil's works]{{snd}}text, concordances, and frequency list. * [http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/Virgilhome.htm Virgil: The Major Texts]: contemporary, line-by-line English translations of ''Eclogues'', ''Georgics'', and ''Aeneid''. * [http://roderic.uv.es/handle/10550/2407/browse?value=Virgili+Mar%C3%B3%2C+Publi%2C+70-19+aC&type=author Virgil] in the collection of Ferdinand, Duke of Calabria at [http://roderic.uv.es/handle/10550/43 Somni]: ** [http://hdl.handle.net/10550/16827 ''Publii Vergilii Maronis Opera''] Naples and Milan, 1450. ** [http://hdl.handle.net/10550/23087 ''Publii Vergilii Maronis Opera''] Italy, 1470–1499. ** [http://hdl.handle.net/10550/23142 ''Publii Vergilii Maronis Opera''] Milan, 1465. * [http://openn.library.upenn.edu/Data/0023/html/lewis_e_198.html Lewis E 198 Opera at OPenn] '''Biography''' * [http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/pwh/suet-vergil.html Suetonius: ''The Life of Virgil'']{{snd}}an English translation. * {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20030724230122/http://www.forumromanum.org/literature/donatus_vita.html ''Vita Vergiliana'']}} [''The'' ''Life of Virgil''] by Aelius Donatus (in original Latin). * Aelius Donatus's [http://www.virgil.org/vitae/a-donatus.htm ''Life of Virgil''], translated by David Wilson-Okamura * [http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/10960 ''Vergil – A Biography''] (Project Gutenberg ed.), by Tenney Frank. * [http://www.lateinforum.de/vergil.htm Vergilian Chronology] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070222085305/http://www.lateinforum.de/vergil.htm |date=22 February 2007 }} (in German). '''Commentary''' * [http://vergil.classics.upenn.edu/ The Vergil Project]. * [https://www.news.co.uk/ "A new ''Aeneid'' for the 21st century"].{{snd}}A review of Robert Fagles's new translation of the ''Aeneid'' in the [http://www.the-tls.co.uk TLS], 9 February 2007. * [http://www.virgilmurder.org Virgilmurder]{{snd}}Jean-Yves Maleuvre's website setting forth his theory that Virgil was murdered by Augustus. * [http://www.cs.utk.edu/~mclennan/BA/AV/ The Secret History of Virgil]{{snd}}contains selection on the magical legends and tall tales that circulated about Virgil in the Middle Ages. * [http://thoughtcast.org/casts/virgils-georgics Interview] with Virgil scholar Richard Thomas and poet David Ferry, who recently translated the ''Georgics''{{snd}}via ''ThoughtCast'' * [http://www.rhapsodes.fll.vt.edu/aeneid1.htm SORGLL: ''Aeneid'', Bk I, 1–49] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121002001956/http://www.rhapsodes.fll.vt.edu/aeneid1.htm |date=2 October 2012 }}, read by Robert Sonkowsky * [http://www.rhapsodes.fll.vt.edu/aeneid04.htm SORGLL: ''Aeneid'', Bk IV, 296–396] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120227140428/http://www.rhapsodes.fll.vt.edu/aeneid04.htm |date=27 February 2012 }}, read by Stephen Daitz '''Bibliographies''' * [http://www.niklasholzberg.com/Homepage/Bibliographien.html Comprehensive bibliographies on all three of Virgil's major works, downloadable in Word or pdf format] * [https://sites.google.com/site/hellenisticbibliography/latin-authors/vergil Bibliography of works relating Vergil to the literature of the Hellenistic age] * [http://www.vroma.org/~bmcmanus/werner_vergil.html A selective Bibliographical Guide to Vergil's ''Aeneid''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181005162933/http://www.vroma.org/~bmcmanus/werner_vergil.html |date=5 October 2018 }} * [http://www.virgil.org/bibliography Virgil in Late Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance: an Online Bibliography]

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