The
''Aeneid'' (; —the title is
Greek in form:
genitive case ''Aeneidos'') is a
Latin epic poem, written by
Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the
legendary story of
Aeneas, a
Trojan who travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the
Romans. It is composed of roughly 10,000 lines in
dactylic hexameter. The first six of the poem's twelve books tell the story of Aeneas's wanderings from Troy to Italy, and the poem's second half tells of the Trojans' ultimately victorious war upon the
Latins, under whose name Aeneas and his Trojan followers are destined to be subsumed.
The hero Aeneas was already known to Greco-Roman legend and myth, having been a character in the ''Iliad'', composed in the 8th century BC. Virgil took the disconnected tales of Aeneas' wanderings, his vague association with the foundation of Rome and a personage of no fixed characteristics other than a scrupulous piety, and fashioned this into a compelling founding myth or nationalist epic that at once tied Rome to the legends of Troy, explained the Punic wars, glorified traditional Roman virtues and legitimized the Julio-Claudian dynasty as descendants of the founders, heroes and gods of Rome and Troy.
The ''Aeneid'' can be divided into two halves based on the disparate subject matter of Books 1–6 (Aeneas' journey to Latium in Italy) and Books 7–12 (the war in Latium). These two halves are commonly regarded as reflecting Virgil's ambition to rival
Homer by treating both the ''Odyssey's'' wandering theme and the ''Iliad'''s warfare themes. This is, however, a rough correspondence, the limitations of which should be borne in mind.
Virgil begins his poem with a statement of his theme (''Arma virumque cano ...'', "I sing of arms and of a man ...") and an invocation to the
Muse, falling some seven lines after the poem's inception: (''Musa, mihi causas memora ...'', "O Muse, recount to me the causes ..."). He then explains the reason for the principal conflict in the story: the resentment held by the goddess
Juno against the
Trojan people. This is consistent with her role throughout the
Homeric
epics.
Also in the manner of Homer, the story proper begins in medias res, with the Trojan fleet in the eastern Mediterranean, heading in the direction of Italy. The fleet, led by Aeneas, is on a voyage to find a second home. It has been foretold that in Italy, he will give rise to a race both noble and courageous, a race which will become known to all nations. Juno is wrathful, because she had not been chosen in the judgment of Paris, and because her favorite city, Carthage, will be destroyed by Aeneas' descendants. Also, Ganymede, a Trojan prince, was chosen to be her husband Jupiter's cup bearer—replacing Juno's daughter Hebe. Juno proceeds to Aeolus, King of the Winds, and asks that he release the winds to stir up a storm in exchange for a bribe (Deiopea, the loveliest of all her sea nymphs, as a wife). Despite refusing her bribe, he agrees, and the storm devastates the fleet.
Neptune takes notice: although he himself is no friend of the Trojans, he is infuriated by Juno's intrusion into his domain, and stills the winds and calms the waters, after making sure that Aeolus would not try again. The fleet takes shelter on the coast of Africa. There, Aeneas's mother, Venus, in the form of a hunting woman very similar to the goddess Diana, encourages him and tells him the history of the city. Eventually, Aeneas ventures in, and in the temple of Juno, seeks and gains the favor of Dido, Queen of Carthage, the city which has only recently been founded by refugees from Tyre and which will later become one of Rome's greatest imperial rivals and enemies.
At a banquet given in the honour of the Trojans, Aeneas recounts sadly the events which occasioned the Trojans' fortuitous arrival. He begins the tale shortly after the events described in the ''Iliad''. Crafty Ulysses devised a way for Greek warriors to gain entry into Troy by hiding in a large wooden horse. The Greeks pretended to sail away, leaving a man, Sinon, to tell the Trojans that the horse was an offering and that if it were taken into the city, the Trojans would be able to conquer Greece. The Trojan priest Laocoön, who had seen through the Greek plot and urged the horse's destruction, hurled his spear at the wooden horse. Just after, in what would be seen by the Trojans as punishment from the gods, Laocoön was suddenly grabbed and eaten, along with his two sons, by two giant sea snakes. So the Trojans brought the horse inside the fortified walls, and after nightfall the armed Greeks emerged and began to slaughter the city's inhabitants.
Aeneas woke up and saw with horror what was happening to his beloved city. At first he tried to fight against the enemy, but soon he lost his comrades and was left alone to fend off tens of Greeks. Hector, the fallen Trojan prince, had told him in a dream to flee with his family. Aeneas tells of his escape with his son Ascanius and father Anchises after various omens (his son Ascanius' head catches fire without his being harmed, and then a shooting star), his wife Creusa having been separated from the others and subsequently killed in the general catastrophe. After getting outside Troy, he goes back for his wife. With Creusa having been killed, her ghost appears before him and tells him that his destiny is to found Rome.
He tells of how, rallying the other survivors, he built a fleet of ships and made landfall at various locations in the Mediterranean: Thrace, where they find the last remains of a fellow Trojan, Polydorus; The Strophades, where they encounter the Harpy Celaeno; Crete, which they believe to be the land where they are to build their city (but they are set straight by Apollo); and Buthrotum. This last city had been built in an attempt to replicate Troy. In Buthrotum, Aeneas met Andromache, the widow of Hector. She still laments for the loss of her valiant husband and beloved child. There, too, Aeneas saw and met Helenus, one of Priam's sons, who had the gift of prophecy. Through him, Aeneas learned the destiny laid out for him: he was divinely advised to seek out the land of Italy (also known as ''Ausonia'' or ''Hesperia''), where his descendants would not only prosper, but in time rule the entire known world. In addition, Helenus also bade him go to the Sibyl in Cumae.
Heading out into the open sea, Aeneas left Buthrotum, rounding Italy's cape and making his way towards Sicily (Trinacria). There, they are caught in the whirlpool of Charybdis and driven out to sea. Soon they come ashore at the land of the Cyclops. There they meet a Greek, Achaemenides, one of Odysseus' men, who had been left behind when his comrades escaped the cave of Polyphemus. They take Achaemenides onboard and narrowly escape Polyphemus. Shortly after these events, Anchises dies peacefully of old age.
Meanwhile, Venus has her own plans. She goes to her son, Aeneas' half-brother Cupid, and tells him to imitate Ascanius. Disguised as such, he goes to Dido, and offers the gifts expected from a guest. With her motherly love revived in the presence of the boy, her heart is pierced and she falls in love with the boy and his father. During the banquet, Dido realizes that she has fallen madly in love with Aeneas, although she had previously sworn fidelity to the soul of her late husband, Sychaeus, who had been murdered by her brother Pygmalion.
Juno seizes upon this opportunity to make a deal with Venus, Aeneas' mother, with the intention of distracting him from his destiny of founding a city in Italy. Aeneas is inclined to return Dido's love, and during a hunting expedition, a storm drives them into a cave in which Aeneas and Dido presumably have sex, an event that Dido takes to indicate a marriage between them. But when Jupiter sends Mercury to remind Aeneas of his duty, he has no choice but to part. Her heart broken, Dido commits suicide by stabbing herself upon a pyre with Aeneas' sword. Before dying, she predicts eternal strife between Aeneas's people and hers; "rise up from my bones, avenging spirit" (4.625, trans. Fitzgerald) is an obvious invocation to Hannibal. Looking back from the deck of his ship, Aeneas sees Dido's funeral pyre's smoke and knows its meaning only too clearly. However, destiny calls and the Trojan fleet sails on to Italy.
Book 5 takes place on Sicily and centers on the funeral games that Aeneas organizes for the anniversary of his father's death. Aeneas and his men have left Carthage for Sicily where, one year after the death of his father, Aeneas organizes a nine-day anniversary which includes celebratory games–a boat race, a foot race, a boxing match, and a shooting contest. In all those contests, Aeneas is careful to reward winners and losers, showing his leadership qualities by not allowing for antagonism even after foul play. Afterward, Ascanius leads a military parade and demonstration, prefiguring Rome's future predilection for war. During those events (in which only men participate), Juno incites the womenfolk to burn the fleet and prevent them from ever reaching Italy, but her plan is thwarted when Ascanius and then Aeneas intervene. Aeneas prays to Jupiter to quench the fires, which the god does with a torrential rainstorm. An anxious Aeneas is comforted by a vision of his father, who tells him to go down to the underworld to receive a vision of his and Rome's future, which he will do in Book 6. In return for safe passage to Italy, the gods, by order of Jupiter, will receive one of Aeneas's men as sacrifice: Palinurus, who steers Aeneas's ship by night, falls overboard and is drowned.
In Book 6, Aeneas, with the guidance of the Cumaean Sibyl, descends into the underworld through an opening at Cumae; there he speaks with the spirit of his father and is offered a prophetic vision of the destiny of Rome.
Upon returning to the land of the living, Aeneas leads the Trojans to settle in the land of
Latium, where he courts
Lavinia, the daughter of king
Latinus. Although Aeneas would have wished to avoid it, war eventually breaks out. Juno is heavily involved in causing this war—she convinces the Queen of Latium to demand that Lavinia be married to
Turnus, the king of a local people, the
Rutuli. Juno continues to stir up trouble, even summoning the
Fury Alecto to ensure that a war takes place.
Seeing the masses of Italians that Turnus has brought against him, Aeneas seeks help from the Tuscans, enemies of Turnus. He meets King Evander from Arcadia, whose son Pallas agrees to lead troops against the other Italians. Meanwhile, the Trojan camp is being attacked, and a midnight raid leads to the deaths of Nisus and his companion Euryalus, in one of the most emotional passages in the book. The gates, however, are defended until Aeneas returns with his Tuscan and Arcadian reinforcements.
In the battling that follows, many heroes are killed—notably Pallas, who is killed by Turnus, and Mezentius, Turnus' close associate. The latter, who has inadvertently allowed his son to be killed while he himself fled, reproaches himself and faces Aeneas in single combat—an honourable but essentially futile pursuit. Another notable hero, Camilla, a sort of Amazon character, fights bravely but is eventually killed. She has been a virgin devoted to Diana and to her nation; the man who kills her is struck dead by Diana's sentinel Opis after doing so, even though he tries to escape.
After this, single combat is proposed between Aeneas and Turnus, but Aeneas is so obviously superior that the Italians, urged on by Turnus's divine sister, Juturna, break the truce. Aeneas is injured, but returns to the battle shortly afterwards. Turnus and Aeneas dominate the battle on opposite wings, but when Aeneas makes a daring attack at the city of Latium (causing the queen of Latium to hang herself in despair), he forces Turnus into single combat once more. In a dramatic scene, Turnus's strength deserts him as he tries to hurl a rock, and he is struck by Aeneas's spear in the leg. As Turnus is begging on his knees for his life, the poem ends with Aeneas killing him in rage when he sees that Turnus is wearing the belt of his friend Pallas as a trophy.
Critics of the ''Aeneid'' focus on a variety of issues (see
Fowler in the
OCD for an excellent bibliography and summary). The tone of the poem 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 Augustan 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 in the poem. 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' victory at Actium in 31 BC. A further focus of study is the character of Aeneas. As the protagonist of the poem, Aeneas seems to constantly waver between his emotions and commitment to his prophetic duty to found Rome; critics note the breakdown of Aeneas' 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; The mention of her son, Marcellus, in book 6 apparently caused Augustus' sister Octavia to faint. Unfortunately, the poem was unfinished at Virgil's death in 19 BC.
According to the tradition, Virgil traveled to Greece around 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. Virgil crossed to Italy by ship, weakened with disease, and died in
Brundisium harbour on 21 September 19 BC, leaving a wish that the manuscript of the Aeneid was to be burned. Augustus ordered Virgil's literary executors,
Lucius Varius Rufus and
Plotius Tucca, to disregard that wish, instead ordering the Aeneid to be published with as few editorial changes as possible. As a result, the existing text of the ''Aeneid'' 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). Other alleged "imperfections" are subject to scholarly debate.
The ''Aeneid'' was written in a time of major political and social change in Rome, with the fall of the
Republic and the
Final War of the Roman Republic having torn through society and many Romans' faith in the "Greatness of Rome" severely faltering. However, the new emperor,
Augustus Caesar, began to institute a new era of prosperity and peace, specifically through the re-introduction of traditional Roman moral values. The ''Aeneid'' was seen as reflecting this aim, by depicting the heroic Aeneas as a man devoted and loyal to his country and its prominence, rather than personal gains, and going off on a journey for the betterment of Rome. In addition, the ''Aeneid'' attempted to legitimize the rule of
Julius Caesar (and by extension, of his adopted son Augustus and his heirs) by renaming Aeneas' son, Ascanius (called Ilus from ''Ilium'', meaning Troy), ''Iulus'' and offering him as an ancestor of the ''
gens Julia'', the family of Julius Caesar, and many other great imperial descendants as part of the prophecy given to him in the Underworld.
Despite the polished and complex nature of the ''Aeneid'' (legend stating that Virgil wrote only three lines of the poem each day), the number of half-complete lines and the abrupt ending are generally seen as evidence that Virgil died before he could finish the work. Because this poem was composed and preserved in writing rather than orally, the ''Aeneid'' is more complete than most classical epics. Furthermore, it is possible to debate whether Virgil intended to rewrite and add to such lines. Some of them would be difficult to complete, and in some instances, the brevity of a line increases its dramatic impact (some arguing the violent ending as a typically Virgilian comment on the darker, vengeful side of humanity). However, these arguments may be anachronistic—half-finished lines might equally, to Roman readers, have been a clear indication of an unfinished poem and have added nothing whatsoever to the dramatic effect.
The perceived deficiency of any account of Aeneas' marriage to Lavinia or his founding of the Roman race led some writers, such as the 15th-century Italian poet Maffeo Vegio (through his ''Mapheus Vegius'' widely printed in the Renaissance), Pier Candido Decembrio (whose attempt was never completed), Claudio Salvucci (in his 1994 epic poem ''The Laviniad''), and Ursula K. Le Guin (in her 2008 novel ''Lavinia'') to compose their own supplements.
Some legends state that Virgil, fearing that he would die before he had properly revised the poem, gave instructions to friends (including the current emperor, Augustus) that the ''Aeneid'' should be burned upon his death, owing to its unfinished state and because he had come to dislike one of the sequences in Book VIII, in which Venus and Vulcan have sexual intercourse, for its nonconformity to Roman moral virtues. The friends did not comply with Virgil's wishes and Augustus himself ordered that they be disregarded. After minor modifications, the ''Aeneid'' was published.
The first full and faithful rendering of the poem in an Anglic language is the Scots translation by Gavin Douglas—his ''Eneados'', completed in 1513, which also included Maffeo Vegio's supplement. Even in the 20th century, Ezra Pound considered this still to be the best ''Aeneid'' translation, praising the "richness and fervour" of its language and its hallmark fidelity to the original. The English translation by the 17th-century poet John Dryden is another important version. Most classic translations, including both Douglas and Dryden, employed a rhyme scheme, a very non-Roman convention that is not usually followed in modern versions.
Recent English verse translations include those by British Poet Laureate Cecil Day-Lewis (1963) which strove to render Virgil's original hexameter line, Allen Mandelbaum (honoured by a 1973 National Book Award), Library of Congress Poet Laureate Robert Fitzgerald (1981), Stanley Lombardo (2005), Robert Fagles (2006), and Sarah Ruden (2008).
The ''Aeneid'', like other classical epics, is written in
dactylic hexameter: each line consists of six metrical feet made up of
dactyls (one long syllable followed by two short syllables) and
spondees (two long syllables). As with other classical Latin poetry, the meter is based on the length of syllables rather than the stress, though the interplay of meter and stress is also important. Virgil also incorporated such poetic devices as
alliteration,
onomatopoeia,
synecdoche, and
assonance.
As was the rule in classical antiquity, an author's style was seen as an expression of his personality and character. Virgil's Latin has been praised for its evenness, subtlety and dignity. It is an open question whether these were also features characteristic of Virgil the man.
Nearly the entirety of the ''Aeneid'' is devoted to the theme of conflict. The primary conflict is that of Aeneas, as guided by gods such as
Jupiter,
Apollo and
Venus, Aeneas' mother. Aeneas is representative of ''pietas'' (a self-less sense of duty), against Turnus, who is guided by
Juno, representing unbridled ''furor'' (mindless passion and fury). ''Furor'' is also personified in the character Dido, however although her furor conflicts with Aeneas' pietas, she herself is not pitted against Aeneas. Other conflicts within the ''Aeneid'' include fate versus action, male versus female, Rome versus Carthage, Aeneas as
Odysseus in Books 1–6 versus Aeneas as
Achilles in Books 7–12, calm weather versus storms, and the
Gate of Horn versus the Ivory Gate of Book VI.
''Pietas'', possibly the key quality of any 'honorable' Roman, consisted of a series of duties: duty towards the gods (hence the English word ''piety''), duty towards one's homeland, duty towards one's followers and duty to one's family—especially one's father. Therefore, a further theme of the poem explores the strong relationship between fathers and sons. The bonds between Aeneas and Ascanius, Aeneas and Anchises, Evander and Pallas, Mezentius and Lausus are all worthy of note. This theme reflects Augustan moral reforms and was perhaps intended to set an example for Roman youth.
The major moral of the ''Aeneid'' is acceptance of the workings of the gods as fate through the use of ''pietas'' or piety. In composing the character of Aeneas, Virgil alludes to Augustus, suggesting that the gods work their ways through humans, using Aeneas to found Rome and Augustus to lead it, and that one must accept one's fate.
The poem abounds with smaller and greater allegories. Two of the debated allegorical sections pertain to the exit from the underworld and to Pallas's belt.
There are two gates of Sleep, one said to be of horn, whereby the true shades pass with ease, the other ''all white ivory agleam without a flaw, and yet false dreams are sent'' through this one by the ghost to the upper world. Anchises now, his last instructions given, took son and Sibyl and let them ''go by the Ivory Gate''.
—Book VI, lines 893–899, Fitzgerald trans. (emphasis added)
Aeneas's leaving the underworld through the gate of false dreams has been variously interpreted: One suggestion is that the passage simply refers to the time of day at which Aeneas returned to the world of the living; another is that it implies that all of Aeneas's actions in the remainder of the poem are somehow "false". In an extension of the latter interpretation, it has been suggested that Virgil is conveying that the history of the world since the foundation of Rome is but a lie. Other scholars claim that Virgil is establishing that the theological implications of the preceding scene (an apparent system of
reincarnation) are not to be taken as literal.
The second section in question is
Then to his glance appeared the accurst swordbelt surmounting Turnus' shoulder, shining with its familiar studs—the strap Young Pallas wore when Turnus wounded him and left him dead upon the field; now Turnus bore that enemy token on his shoulder—enemy still. For when the sight came home to him, Aeneas ''raged'' at the relic of his anguish worn by this man as trophy. ''Blazing up and terrible in his anger'', he called out: "You in your plunder, torn from one of mine, shall I be robbed of you? This wound will come from Pallas: Pallas makes this offering, and from your criminal blood exacts his due." ''He sank his blade in fury'' in Turnus' chest …
—Book XII, lines 1281–1295, Fitzgerald trans. (emphasis added)
This section has been interpreted to mean that for the entire passage of the poem, Aeneas who symbolizes ''pietas'' (reason) in a moment becomes ''furor'' (fury), thus destroying what is essentially the primary theme of the poem itself. Many have argued over these two sections. Some claim that Virgil meant to change them before he died, while others find that the location of the two passages, at the very end of the so-called Volume I (Books 1–6, the ''
Odyssey''), and Volume II (Books 7–12, the ''
Iliad''), and their short length, which contrasts with the lengthy nature of the poem, are evidence that Virgil placed them purposefully there.
The ''Aeneid'' is a cornerstone of the
Western canon, and early (at least by the 2nd century AD) became one of the essential elements of a Latin education, usually required to be memorized. Even after the
decline of the Roman Empire, it "remained central to a Latin education". In Latin-Christian culture, the ''Aeneid'' was one of the canonical texts, subjected to
commentary as a philological and educational study, with the most complete commentary having been written by the 4th-century grammarian
Maurus Servius Honoratus. It was widely held to be the pinnacle of Latin literature, much in the same way that the ''Iliad'' was seen to be supreme in Greek literature. The strong influence of the ''Aeneid'' has been identified in the development of European vernacular literatures—some English works that show its influence being ''
Beowulf'',
Layamon's ''Brut'' (through the source text ''
Historia Regum Britanniae''), ''
The Faerie Queene'', and
Milton's ''
Paradise Lost''. Italian poet
Dante Alighieri was himself profoundly influenced by the ''Aeneid'', so much so that his magnum opus ''
The Divine Comedy'', itself widely considered a part of the western canon, was written in a style similar to the ''Aeneid'' and featured the author Virgil as a major character - the guide of Dante through the realms of the Inferno and Purgatorio. The importance of Latin education itself was paramount in Western culture: "from 1600 to 1900, the Latin school was at the center of European education, wherever it was found"; within that Latin school, Vergil was taught at the advanced level and, in 19th-century England, special editions of Vergil were awarded to students who distinguished themselves.
In the United States, Vergil and specifically the ''Aeneid'' were taught in the fourth year of a Latin sequence, at least until the 1960s; the current (2011) Advanced Placement curriculum in Latin continues to assign a central position to the poem: "The AP Latin: Vergil Exam is designed to test the student's ability to read, translate, understand, analyze, and interpret the lines of the ''Aeneid'' that appear on the course syllabus in Latin."
As a result, many phrases from this poem entered the Latin language, much as passages from Shakespeare and Alexander Pope have entered the English language. One example is from Aeneas' reaction to a painting of the sack of Troy: ''Sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt''—"These are the tears of things, and our mortality cuts to the heart" (''Aeneid'' I, 462). The influence is also visible in very modern work: Brian Friel's ''Translations'' (a play written in the 1980s, set during the English colonization of Ireland), makes references to the classics throughout and ends with a passage from the ''Aeneid'':
"''Urbs antiqua fuit''—there was an ancient city which, 'tis said, Juno loved above all the lands. And it was the goddess's aim and cherished hope that here should be the capital of all nations—should the fates perchance allow that. Yet in truth she discovered that a race was springing from Trojan blood to overthrow some day these Tyrian towers—a people ''late regem belloque superbum''—kings of broad realms and proud in war who would come forth for Libya's downfall."
The ''Aeneid'' was the basis for the 1962 Italian film ''The Avenger''.
In the musical ''Spring Awakening'', based on the play of the same title by Frank Wedekind, schoolboys study the Latin text, and the first verse of Book 1 is incorporated into the number "All That's Known".
A number of
parodies and
travesties of the ''Aeneid'' have been made. One of the earliest was written in Italian by
Giovanni Batista Lalli in 1635, titled ''L'Eneide travestita del Signor Gio''.
A French parody by Paul Scarron became famous in France in the mid-17th century, and spread rapidly through Europe, accompanying the growing French influence. Its influence was especially strong in Russia.
Charles Cotton's work ''Scarronides'' included a travestied ''Aeneid''.
In 1796, the Russian poet N. P. Osipov published travesties of several portions of the ''Aeneid''.
From the late 18th to the early 19th centuries, many Slavic language folk parodies of the story were made. One of these, ''Енеїда'' (Eneyida), was written in 1798 by
Ivan Kotlyarevsky. It is considered to be the first literary work written in a language close to modern
Ukrainian. His epic poem was adapted into an animated feature film of the same name, in 1991, by
Ukranimafilm.
Brutus of Troy
Characters in the Aeneid
Eridanos
Greek mythology
Roman mythology
Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 31
The Golden Bough
Prosody (Latin)
Buckham, Philip Wentworth; Spence, Joseph; Holdsworth, Edward; Warburton, William; Jortin, John, ''Miscellanea Virgiliana: In Scriptis Maxime Eruditorum Virorum Varie Dispersa, in Unum Fasciculum Collecta'', Cambridge : Printed for W. P. Grant; 1825.
''Virgil: The Aeneid (Landmarks of World Literature (Revival))'' by K. W. Gransden ISBN 0-521-83213-6
''Virgil's 'Aeneid': Cosmos and Imperium'' by Philip R. Hardie ISBN 0-19-814036-3
Brooks Otis, ''Virgil: A Study in Civilized Poetry'', Oxford, 1964
Lee Fratantuono, ''Madness Unchained: A Reading of Virgil's Aeneid'', Lexington Books, 2007.
Joseph Reed, ''Virgil's Gaze'', Princeton, 2007.
Kenneth Quinn, ''Virgil's Aeneid: A Critical Description'', London, 1968.
Francis Cairns, ''Virgil's Augustan Epic'', Cambridge, 1989.
Gian Biagio Conte, ''The Poetry of Pathos: Studies in Vergilian Epic'', Oxford, 2007.
Karl Gransden, ''Virgil's Iliad'', Cambridge, 1984.
Richard Jenkyns, ''Virgil's Experience'', Oxford, 1998.
Wolfgang Kofler, ''Aeneas und Vergil. Untersuchungen zur poetologischen Dimension der Aeneis'', Heidelberg 2003.
Eve Adler, ''Vergil's Empire'', Rowman and Littlefield, 2003.
– Latin text, Dryden translation, and T.C. Williams translation (from the Perseus Project)
Gutenberg Project: The Aeneid (Dryden translation) (plain text)
Fairclough's Loeb Translation (1916) Theoi.com (Books 1–6 only)
The Online Library of Liberty Project from Liberty Fund, Inc: The Aeneid (Dryden translation, New York: P.F. Collier and Son, 1909) (PDF and HTML)
''Aeneidos Libri XII'' Latin text by Publius Vergilius Maro, PDF format
Menu Page The Aeneid in several formats at Project Gutenburg
Latin Text Online
The Thirteenth Book of the ''Aeneid'': a fragment by Pier Candido Decembrio, translated by David Wilson-Okamura
Supplement to the twelfth book of the ''Aeneid'' by Maffeo Vegio at Latin text and English translation
Four talks by scholars on aspects of the Aeneid (including Virgil's relationship to Roman history, the Rome of Caesar Augustus, the challenges of translating Latin poetry, and Purcell's opera ''Dido and Aeneas''), delivered at the Maine Humanities Council's Winter Weekend program.
Notes on the political context of the Aeneid.
Perseus/Tufts: Maurus Servius Honoratus. Commentary on the ''Aeneid'' of Vergil. (Latin)
Category:1st-century BC works
Category:Julio-Claudian dynasty
Category:Unfinished books
Category:Greece in fiction
Category:Italy in fiction
Category:Works based on The Odyssey
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sco:Eneados
sq:Eneida
scn:Eneidi
simple:Aeneis
sk:Eneida (Vergílius)
sl:Eneida
sr:Енеида
sh:Eneida
fi:Aeneis
sv:Aeneiden
tl:Aeneis
tr:Aineias
uk:Енеїда
zh:埃涅阿斯纪
