The Aeneid

After Augustus was estabished as emperor of Rome following the battle of Actium (31 B.C.), the wealthy literary patron Maecenas urged the leading poets of the city to write an epic celebrating Augustus's triumph. Horace and Propertius declined; Virgil took up the challenge. He spent the last ten years of his life working on the AENEID, the Trojan hero who fled the burning ruins of Troy with his father Anchises on his back, to Latium, in Italy where he became, ultimately, the founder of Rome. The poem is modeled on Homer's epics in both its verse form (dactylic hexameters) and organization. From its immortal opening words, "Arma virumque cano" ("I sing of arms and the man"), to famous scenes such as Aeneas's long visit to the underworld (where Augustus's reign is foretold), the AENEID has held a primary place in Western literature for two thousand years.