Aeneid

The Aeneid is Virgil’s Latin epic about Aeneas, a survivor of Troy whose journey leads towards a new homeland in Italy. Wanderings and encounters occupy the earlier part of the poem, followed by conflict over settlement in the later books. Aeneas’ obligations to his family, companions, gods, and descendants repeatedly come into tension with immediate feeling. The story gives Rome’s traditional account of its origins a place within the older world of Greek epic, yet it also dwells on the losses that accompany that future. Dido, Turnus, and other figures keep those human costs visible within the larger account of destiny.