Virgil Goode
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Virginia's 5th district
In office January 3, 1997 – January 3, 2009
Preceded by	Lewis Payne
Succeeded by	Tom Perriello
Personal details
Born	Virgil Hamlin Goode, Jr. (1946-10-17) October 17, 1946 (age 65) Richmond, Virginia, U.S.
Political party	Democratic Party (Before 2000) Independent (2000–2002) Republican Party (2002–2010) Constitution Party (2010–present)
Spouse(s)	Lucy Dodson
Alma mater	University of Richmond University of Virginia
Military service
Service/branch	Army National Guard
Years of service	1969–1975
Unit	Virginia Army National Guard

Virgil Hamlin Goode, Jr. (/gud/,^[1] born October 17, 1946) is an American politician, last serving as a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives. He represented the 5th congressional district of Virginia (map) from 1997 to 2009. He lost his seat in the 2008 election to Democrat Tom Perriello.^[2] Goode subsequently joined the Constitution Party. He is that party's 2012 presidential nominee.

Early life and education[link]

Goode was born in Richmond, Virginia, the son of Alice Clara (née Besecker) and Virgil Hamlin Goode.^[3] He has spent most of his life in Rocky Mount. Goode graduated with a B.A. from the University of Richmond (Phi Beta Kappa) and with a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. He also is a member of Lambda Chi Alpha Fraternity, and served in the Army National Guard from 1969 to 1975.^[4]

Virginia Senate[link]

Goode grew up as a Democrat.^[5] He entered politics soon after graduating from law school. At the age of 27 he won a special election to the state Senate from a Southside district as an independent after the death of the Democratic incumbent. One of his major campaign focuses at the time was advocacy for the Equal Rights Amendment.^[6] Soon after being elected, he joined the Democrats.

Goode wore his party ties very loosely. He became famous for his support of the tobacco industry, where he spoke about his fear that "his elderly mother would be denied 'the one last pleasure' of smoking a cigarette on her hospital deathbed."^[6] He was an ardent defender of gun rights while being an enthusiastic supporter of L. Douglas Wilder, who would become the first elected black governor in the history of the United States. At the Democratic Party's political convention, it was Goode who nominated Wilder for lieutenant governor in 1985. However, while governor, Wilder cracked down on the sale of guns in the state.^[6]

After the 1995 elections resulted in a 20–20 split between Democrats and Republicans in the state Senate, Goode seriously considered voting with the Republicans on organizing the chamber. Had he done so, the State Senate would have been under Republican control for the first time since Reconstruction (the Republicans ultimately won control outright in 1999). Goode's actions at the time "forced his party to share power with Republican lawmakers in the state legislature," which further upset the Democratic Party.^[6]

U.S. Senate elections[link]

1982[link]

Independent incumbent U.S. Senator Harry Flood Byrd decided to retire. Goode ran for the seat, but lost the nomination, getting just 8% of the vote. Lieutenant Governor Richard Joseph Davis won the convention with 64% of the vote.^[7] Davis lost the general election by a two point margin.^[8]

1994[link]

He decided to run for the U.S. Senate again in 1994, to challenge incumbent Democrat U.S. Senator Chuck Robb in the Democratic convention. He angered much of the leadership of the Virginia Democratic Party during his second run.^[6] Robb won the convention 50%-22%.^[8] However, Robb failed to reach the threshold needed to avoid a primary election. On June 14, Robb defeated Goode 58%-34%.^[9]

U.S. House of Representatives[link]

Elections[link]

1996

When incumbent Democrat U.S. Congressman Lewis Payne decided to retire in 1996, Goode won the Democratic nomination to succeed him. His state senate district was virtually co-extensive with the southern portion of the congressional district. He defeated Republican nominee George Landrith, an attorney, 61%-36%.^[10]

1998

He won re-election to a second term unopposed.^[11]

2000

Prior to the election, he switched from a Democrat to an independent. He portrayed himself "as independent as the people he serves." Despite running as an independent, he won re-election to a third term with 67% of the vote.^[12]

2002

For the 2001 congressional redistricting, Goode allied with Republican Bob Goodlatte and Democrat Rick Boucher to ensure that none of them would be put in the same district. Goode's home in Franklin County is only about 20 miles (32 km) south of Goodlatte's home in Roanoke, the heart of the 6th district. The counties to the west of Franklin County are in Boucher's 9th District, which had to expand due to lack of population growth.

He won the Republican nomination and won re-election to a fourth term with 63% of the vote.^[13][14] He was the first Republican to represent this district since 1889.

2004

He won re-election to a fifth term with 64% of the vote, defeated Vietnam War veteran and businessman Al Weed.^[15][16]

2006

He won re-election to a sixth term with 59% of the vote against Weed again.^[17]

2008

In 2008 Goode lost his seat, being defeated by Democrat Tom Perriello by 727 votes (0.24% of over 316,000 votes cast). While Goode won 13 of the district's 20 counties and independent cities, Perriello's margin of victory was decided in the district's more urbanized areas. Goode won only one independent city in the district, Bedford, but by only 16 votes. Ultimately, Goode could not overcome a combined 19,000-vote deficit in the Charlottesville area (Charlottesville and surrounding Albemarle County), where Perriello is from.^[18]

2010

Goode had filed paperwork with the Federal Election Committee to allow him to raise money for a possible rematch in the 2010 elections, due to receiving "unsolicited" campaign contributions, though he said he had not decided whether or not he would run in 2010.^[19] However, Goode announced in late July 2009 that he would not seek the Republican nomination for the seat in 2010.^[20] Nonetheless, many expected this race to be heavily targeted by the Republican Party in 2010; and it was won by Republican Robert Hurt that year.

Tenure[link]

During his first two terms, he compiled one of the most conservative records of any Democrat in the Congress.^[21] Like many Southern Democrats, Goode strongly opposed abortion and gun control and vigorously supported the tobacco industry. His contrarian streak resulted in him being isolated within the Democratic caucus, which later led to him switching parties.^[5]

Goode came under considerable fire shortly after being unopposed for a second term in 1998, when he voted for three of the four articles of impeachment against Bill Clinton. In January 2000, he declared himself an independent and began caucusing with the Republicans, who gave him a seat on the Appropriations Committee. Republicans had been lobbying him to switch parties since 1998. Reflecting on Goode's record at the time, David Brown, the mayor of Charlottesville and a former chairman of the city's Democratic Party said "It was obvious he didn't really fit in the Democratic Party anymore."^[6]

Goode's primary policy initiatives were anti-amnesty immigration reform, veterans' healthcare, and the enactment in 2004 of a $9.6 billion buyout for tobacco farmers. Goode has sponsored legislation to permit deployment of the U.S. Armed Forces to the U.S.-Mexico border. He voted in 2002 to authorize the Iraq War and in support of an $87 billion Iraq War supplemental spending bill.

Goode is a staunch advocate of a federal prohibition of online poker. In 2006, he cosponsored H.R. 4777, the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act.^[22]

Goode voted in 2007 against a resolution opposing the increase in troop numbers in Iraq,^[23] saying that he didn't want to "aid and assist the Islamic jihadists who want the green flag of the crescent and star to wave over the Capitol of the United States and over the White House of this country" and that "radical Muslims" wanted to control the world and put "In Muhammad We Trust" on American currency.^[24]

Liberty caucus

Goode served on the Liberty Caucus (sometimes called the Liberty Committee), a group of libertarian-leaning congressional representatives.^[25] Congressman Ron Paul hosts a luncheon for the Liberty Caucus every Thursday. Other members include Jimmy Duncan of Tennessee, Walter B. Jones of North Carolina, Roscoe Bartlett of Maryland, Scott Garrett of New Jersey, Zach Wamp of Tennessee and Jeff Flake of Arizona.^[26] In the 2008 Republican primary elections for President, the Federal Election Commission reported that Goode donated $500 to Republican candidate Ron Paul.^[27]

MZM

In 2005, Goode faced questions when a major corporate campaign donor, defense contractor MZM, Inc., was implicated in a bribery scandal that resulted in the criminal conviction and resignation of California congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham.^[28] Although Goode insisted that his relations with MZM were motivated solely by his interest in bringing high-paying skilled jobs to his district, in December of that year he donated the $88,000 received in MZM contributions to regional charities.

On July 21, 2006 Richard Berglund, a former supervisor of the Martinsville, Virginia office of MZM Inc., pleaded guilty to making illegal donations to Goode's campaign. Court papers indicated that Berglund and MZM owner Mitchell Wade (who previously pleaded guilty) engaged in a scheme to reimburse MZM employees for campaign donations.^[29] There was no allegation of wrong-doing on the part of Goode's campaign.

2006 Qur'an controversy

In 2006, Minnesota's 5th congressional district elected Keith Ellison as the first Muslim to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives. Some criticized Ellison's intended use of the Qur'an once owned by Thomas Jefferson at a private swearing-in ceremony;^[30] among them, Goode was vocal in his opposition to Ellison's plan. One of Goode's constituents posted a letter online from the congressman regarding Ellison. The letter reads in part:

When I raise my hand to take the oath on Swearing In Day, I will have the Bible in my other hand. I do not subscribe to using the Koran in any way. The Muslim Representative from Minnesota was elected by the voters of that district and if American citizens don't wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran.^[31][32]

Ellison criticized Goode for this letter, stating that he is not an immigrant and that Goode does not understand Islam. Ellison also offered to meet with Goode to discuss the matter.^[32] On his first day in office, Ellison sought out Goode and initiated a cordial exchange on the House floor.^[33]

In interviews around that time, Goode stated that he was in favor of decreasing legal immigration to the United States and that he wanted to do away with Diversity Immigrant Visas. Goode argued that such visas would allow people "not from European countries" or from "some terrorist states" to enter America.^[34] Goode also repeated his views on a January 1, 2007 post to the USA Today blog.^[35]

Hummer accusation

At the 2008 Independence Day parade in Scottsville, Virginia, independent supporters of Goode drove a Hummer H3 decorated with signs promoting Goode and Robert B. Bell.^[36] With gas prices at $4 a gallon, a supporter of Goode's opponent, Tom Perriello, put video of the parade on YouTube, accusing Goode of being out of touch with ordinary citizens grappling with the high cost of fuel.^[37]

Goode never rode in the Hummer, and is not known to have had anything to do with it, but he was widely portrayed as having both owned and operated the vehicle.^[36] He was lampooned on The Daily Show for the story.^[38]

The Sunlight Foundation pointed out that among the 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, Goode has the 13th-highest amount of investment in oil stocks, meaning that Goode stands to gain financially through high gas prices and pro-oil industry legislation.^[39]

Eden's Curve controversy

In the end credits of the gay-themed film Eden's Curve, the producers list Goode in the acknowledgements. Linwood Duncan, Goode's press secretary, has a minor role as the dean of the college. A number of other Danville residents are listed in the cast and credits.

The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development grant that Goode assisted in bringing to the North Theatre project was received by the North Theatre organization in 2005.

The Danville Register & Bee reported that Duncan and Goode’s wife Lucy were both on the founding board of the North Theatre. Virgil Goode checked with the House ethics committee, before Duncan or his wife Lucy went onto the North Theatre board. In the light of the controversy, Lucy Goode stepped down from the board.

In 2003, Duncan told the Register & Bee he didn’t see any conflict with the earmarked dollars. "I don’t even know how a question of a conflict even arises," he said.^[40]

Sabato earmark controversy

In June 2009, it was revealed that political scientist Larry Sabato, of the Center for Politics, had been the recipient of over $7 million in earmark money from Goode, whom Sabato predicted would win re-election in 2008, despite declining poll numbers; Goode ultimately lost the race by a small margin.^[41] Some observers have suggested that Sabato should have revealed his financial connection to Goode or recused himself from making predictions about the race.^[42]

Committee assignments[link]

• House Appropriations Committee

2012 presidential campaign[link]

Wikinews has related news: Wikinews interviews former Congressman Virgil Goode, Constitution Party presidential candidate

In November 2010, Goode joined the executive committee of the Constitution Party, having previously been a member of the party's larger national committee.^[43] According to the party's national field director, Gary Odom, Goode "has made it clear to members in private and public comments at the meeting and prior thereto that he has a strong interest in seeking the party’s nomination" for the presidency," and the party sent out a promotional mailing in June 2011 saying that Goode "has expressed a strong interest in seeking the Constitution Party Presidential nomination in 2012."^[44][45] He told The Roanoke Times in June 2011 that he would "consider it as the year progresses."^[46]

Goode filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) as a presidential candidate on February 10.^[47] He told The Daily Caller on February 16 that he was running for the Constitution Party nomination.^[48]

Wikinews has related news: U.S. Constitution Party nominates former Congressman Virgil Goode for president

Goode was selected as the party's 2012 presidential nominee on April 21, 2012 at the 2012 Constitution Party National Convention in Nashville, Tennessee.^[49][50]

Electoral history[link]

See also[link]

• United States House of Representatives elections in Virginia, 2008#District

References[link]

External links[link]

• Biography at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Voting record maintained by The Washington Post
• Biography, voting record, and interest group ratings at Project Vote Smart
• Issue positions and quotes at On the Issues
• Financial information at OpenSecrets.org
• Campaign finance reports and data at the Federal Election Commission
• 2012 presidential campaign website
• Profile at SourceWatch Congresspedia
• Audio from Goode's August 9, 2006 debate with Al Weed
• Legislative profile and tracking for Virgil Goode from GovTrack

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Publius Vergilius Maro
Depiction of Virgil, 3rd-century AD,[1] "Monnus-Mosaic", Rheinische Landesmuseum Trier
Born	October 15, 70 BC Andes, Cisalpine Gaul, Roman Republic
Died	September 21, 19 BC (age 50) Brundisium, Apulia, Roman Empire
Occupation	Poet
Nationality	Roman
Genres	Epic poetry, didactic poetry, pastoral poetry
Literary movement	Augustan poetry
Influences Homer, Callimachus, Ennius, Lucretius, Theocritus
Influenced Ovid, Lucan, Statius, Dante, Ariosto, Shakespeare, Milton, Keats, Thoreau, Borges, Heaney

Publius Vergilius Maro (October 15, 70 BC – September 21, 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil /ˈvɜrdʒəl/ in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues (or Bucolics), the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid. A number of minor poems, collected in the Appendix Vergiliana, are sometimes attributed to him.

Virgil is traditionally ranked as one of Rome's greatest poets. His Aeneid has been considered the national epic of ancient Rome from the time of its composition to the present day. Modeled after Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, the Aeneid follows the Trojan refugee Aeneas as he struggles to fulfill his destiny and arrive on the shores of Italy—in Roman mythology the founding act of Rome. Virgil's work has had wide and deep influence on Western literature, most notably the Divine Comedy of Dante, in which Virgil appears as Dante's guide through hell and purgatory.

Life and works[link]

Birth and biographical tradition[link]

A bust of Virgil in Naples

Virgil's biographical tradition is thought to depend on a lost biography by Varius, Virgil's editor, which was incorporated into the biography by Suetonius and the commentaries of Servius and Donatus, the two great commentators on Virgil's poetry. Although the commentaries no doubt record much factual information about Virgil, some of their evidence can be shown to rely on inferences made from his poetry and allegorizing; thus, Virgil's biographical tradition remains problematic.^[2]

The tradition holds that Virgil was born in the village of Andes, near Mantua^[3] in Cisalpine Gaul.^[4] Scholars suggest Etruscan, Umbrian or even Celtic descent by examining the linguistic or ethnic markers of the region. Analysis of his name has led to beliefs that he descended from earlier Roman colonists. Modern speculation ultimately is not supported by narrative evidence either from his own writings or his later biographers. Macrobius says that Virgil's father was of a humble background; however, scholars generally believe that Virgil was from an equestrian landowning family which could afford to give him an education. He attended schools in Cremona, Mediolanum, Rome and Naples. After considering briefly a career in rhetoric and law, the young Virgil turned his talents to poetry.^[5]

Early works[link]

According to the commentators, Virgil received his first education when he was five years old and he later went to Cremona, Milan, and finally Rome to study rhetoric, medicine, and astronomy, which he soon abandoned for philosophy. From Virgil's admiring references to the neoteric writers Pollio and Cinna, it has been inferred that he was, for a time, associated with Catullus' neoteric circle. However schoolmates considered Virgil extremely shy and reserved, according to Servius, and he was nicknamed "Parthenias" or "maiden" because of his social aloofness. Virgil seems to have suffered bad health throughout his life and in some ways lived the life of an invalid. According to the Catalepton, while in the Epicurean school of Siro the Epicurean at Naples, he began to write poetry. A group of small works attributed to the youthful Virgil by the commentators survive collected under the title Appendix Vergiliana, but are largely considered spurious by scholars. One, the Catalepton, consists of fourteen short poems,^[6] some of which may be Virgil's, and another, a short narrative poem titled the Culex ("The Gnat"), was attributed to Virgil as early as the 1st century AD.

[edit] The Eclogues

Page from the Eclogues in the 5th-century Vergilius Romanus

The biographical tradition asserts that Virgil began the hexameter Eclogues (or Bucolics) in 42 BC and it is thought that the collection was published around 39-38 BC, although this is controversial.^[6] The Eclogues (from the Greek for "selections") are a group of ten poems roughly modeled on the bucolic hexameter poetry ("pastoral poetry") of the Hellenistic poet Theocritus. After his victory in the Battle of Philippi in 42 BC, fought against the army led by the assassins of Julius Caesar, Octavian tried to pay off his veterans with land expropriated from towns in northern Italy, supposedly including, according to the tradition, an estate near Mantua belonging to Virgil. The loss of his family farm and the attempt through poetic petitions to regain his property have traditionally been seen as Virgil's 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. Readers often did and sometimes do identify the poet himself 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 fictive texts preferring instead to interpret the diverse characters and themes as representing the poet's own contrastive perceptions of contemporary life and thought. Thematically, the ten Eclogues develop and vary pastoral tropes and play with generic expectations. 1 and 9 address the land confiscations and their effects on the Italian countryside. 2 and 3 are highly pastoral and erotic, discussing love, both homosexual (Ecl. 2) and panerotic (Ecl. 3). Eclogues 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 (who the child is has been highly contested). 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 is credited^{[by whom?]} in the Eclogues with establishing Arcadia as a poetic ideal that still resonates in Western literature and visual arts and setting the stage for the development of Latin pastoral by Calpurnius Siculus, Nemesianus, and later writers.

[edit] The Georgics

Sometime after the publication of the Eclogues (probably before 37 BC),^[7] Virgil became part of the circle of Maecenas, Octavian's capable agent d'affaires who sought to counter sympathy for Antony among the leading families by rallying Roman literary figures to Octavian's side. Virgil seems to have made connections with many of the other leading literary figures of the time, including Horace, in whose poetry he is often mentioned,^[8] and Varius Rufus, who later helped finish the Aeneid.

Late-17th-century illustration of a passage from the Georgics by Jerzy Siemiginowski-Eleuter

At Maecenas' insistence (according to the tradition) Virgil spent the ensuing years (perhaps 37–29 BC) on the longer didactic hexameter poem called the Georgics (from Greek, "On Working the Earth") which he dedicated to Maecenas. The ostensible theme of the Georgics is instruction in the methods of running a farm. In handling this theme, Virgil follows in the didactic (instructive) tradition of the Greek poet Hesiod one of whose poems focuses on farming and the later Hellenistic poets. The four books of the Georgics focus respectively on raising crops and trees (1 and 2), livestock and horses (3), and beekeeping and the qualities of bees (4). Significant 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 a long section in praise of Virgil's friend, the poet Gallus, who was disgraced by Augustus and committed suicide in 26 BC. Augustus is supposed to have ordered the section to be replaced.

A major critical issue in considering the Georgics is the assessment of tone; Virgil seems to waver between optimism and pessimism, sparking a great deal of debate on the poem's intentions.^[9] With the Georgics Virgil is again credited with laying the foundations for later didactic poetry. The biographical tradition says that Virgil and Maecenas took turns reading the Georgics to Octavian upon his return from defeating Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC.

[edit] The Aeneid

A 1st-century terracotta expressing the pietas of Aeneas, who carries his aged father and leads his young son

The Aeneid is widely considered Virgil's finest work and one of the most important poems in the history of western literature. Virgil worked on the Aeneid during the last ten years of his life (29-19 BC), commissioned, according to Propertius, by Augustus.^[10] The epic poem consists of 12 books in hexameter verse which describe the journey of Aeneas, a prince fleeing the sack of Troy, to Italy, his battle with the Italian prince Turnus, and the foundation of a city from which Rome would emerge. The Aeneid'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;^[7] Homer the preeminent classical epicist is everywhere present, but Virgil also makes especial use of the Latin poet Ennius and the Hellenistic poet Apollonius of Rhodes among the various other writers he alludes to. Although the Aeneid casts itself firmly into the epic mode, it often seeks to expand 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.^[11]

Book 1^[12] (at the head of the Odyssean section) opens with a storm which Juno, Aeneas' enemy throughout the poem, stirs up against the fleet. The storm drives the hero to the coast of Carthage, which historically 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 a symbolic anticipation of the fierce wars between Carthage and Rome. In Book 5, Aeneas' father Anchises dies and funeral games are celebrated for him. 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 his Rome's destiny to his son.

Book 7 (beginning the Iliadic half) opens with an address to the muse and recounts Aeneas 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 armor and a shield depicting Roman history. Book 9 records an assault by Nisus and Euryalus on the Rutulians, 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' city, the death of Amata, and Aeneas' defeat and killing of Turnus, whose pleas for mercy are spurned.

[edit] Reception of the Aeneid

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 (see Fowler for a bibliography and summary).^[13] 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 against Mark Antony and Cleopatra VII 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;^[7] and Book 6 apparently caused Augustus' sister Octavia to faint. Although the truth of this claim is subject to scholarly scepticism, it has served as a basis for later art, such as Jean-Baptiste Wicar's Virgil Reading the Aeneid.

Unfortunately, some lines of the poem were left unfinished, and the whole was unedited, at Virgil's death in 19 BC.

[edit] Virgil's death and editing of the Aeneid

According to the tradition, Virgil traveled to Greece around 19 BC in order 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 Brundisium harbour on September 21, 19 BC. Augustus ordered Virgil's literary executors, Lucius Varius Rufus and Plotius Tucca, to disregard Virgil's own wish that the poem be burned, instead ordering it published with as few editorial changes as possible. 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). Other alleged imperfections are subject to scholarly debate.

Later views and reception[link]

In antiquity[link]

A 3rd-century Tunisian mosaic of Virgil seated between Clio and Melpomene (from Hadrumetum [Sousse])^[14]

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 own poetry. The Augustan poet Ovid parodies the opening lines of the Aeneid in Am. 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 a particularly important example of post-Virgilian response to the epic genre. Lucan's epic, the Bellum Civile has been considered an anti-Virgilian epic, disposing with the divine mechanism, treating historical events, and diverging drastically from Virgilian epic practice. The Flavian 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."^[15] In Silius Italicus, Virgil finds one of his most ardent admirers. With almost every line of his epic Punica Silius references Virgil. Indeed, Silius is known to have bought Virgil's tomb and worshipped the poet.^[16] Partially as a result of his so-called "Messianic" Fourth Eclogue—widely interpreted later to have predicted the birth of Jesus Christ -- Virgil was in later antiquity imputed to have the magical abilities of a seer; the sortes Virgilianae, the process of using Virgil's poetry as a tool of divination, is found in the time of Hadrian, and continued into the Middle Ages. 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.^[17] Virgil also found commentators in antiquity. Servius, a commentator of the 4th century AD based his work on the commentary of Donatus. Servius' 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.

Late antiquity and Middle Ages[link]

A 5th-century portrait of Virgil from the Vergilius Romanus

Even as the Western Roman empire collapsed, literate men acknowledged that Virgil was a master poet. Gregory of Tours read Virgil, whom he quotes in several places, along with some other Latin poets, though he cautions that "we ought not to relate their lying fables, lest we fall under sentence of eternal death."

The Aeneid remained the central Latin literary text of the Middle Ages and retained its status as the grand epic of the Latin peoples, and of those who considered themselves to be of Roman provenance, such as the English. It also held religious importance as it describes the founding of a "Holy City".^{[citation needed]}

Virgil's fourth Eclogue was often seen as a prophecy of the coming of Jesus Christ. It has been argued^{[citation needed]} that this originated in a need on the part of medieval scholars to reconcile Virgil's non-Christian background with the high regard in which they held his works, who were thus forced to make him a prophet of sorts. This view is defended by a few scholars today, notably Richard Thomas (see below, under links). Cicero and other classical writers too were declared Christian due to similarities in moral thinking to Christianity.^{[citation needed]}

Dante made Virgil his guide in Hell and the greater part of Purgatory in The Divine Comedy. Dante also mentions Virgil in De vulgari eloquentia, along with Ovid, Lucan and Statius, as one of the four regulati poetae (ii, vi, 7).

The best-known surviving manuscripts of Virgil's works include the Vergilius Augusteus, the Vergilius Vaticanus and the Vergilius Romanus.

Mysticism and hidden meanings[link]

In the Middle Ages, Virgil was considered a herald of Christianity for his Eclogue 4 verses concerning the birth of a boy, which were read as a prophecy of Jesus' nativity.

Also during the Middle Ages, as Virgil was developed into a kind of magus, manuscripts of the Aeneid were used for divinatory bibliomancy, the Sortes Virgilianae (Virgilian lottery), in which a line would be selected at random and interpreted in the context of a current situation (Compare the ancient Chinese I Ching). The Old Testament was sometimes used for similar arcane purposes.

Virgil's tomb[link]

The structure known as "Virgil's tomb" is found at the entrance of an ancient Roman tunnel (also known as "grotta vecchia") in the Parco di Virgilio in Piedigrotta, a district two miles from old Naples, near the Mergellina harbor, on the road heading north along the coast to Pozzuoli. (The site called Parco Virgiliano is some distance further west along the coast.) While Virgil was already the object of literary admiration and veneration before his death, in the following centuries his name became associated with miraculous powers, his tomb the destination of pilgrimages and veneration. The poet himself was said to have created the cave with the fierce power of his intense gaze.^{[citation needed]}

It is said that the Chiesa della Santa Maria di Piedigrotta was erected by Church authorities to neutralize this adoration and "Christianize" the site. The tomb, however, is a tourist attraction, and still sports a tripod burner originally dedicated to Apollo, although the tripod is not original to the site.^{[citation needed]}

Name in English[link]

In the Late Empire and Middle Ages Vergilius was spelled Virgilius. Two explanations are commonly given for this alteration. One deduces a false etymology associated with the word virgo ("maiden" in Latin) due to Virgil's excessive, "maiden"-like (parthenías or παρθενίας in Greek), modesty. Alternatively, some argue that Vergilius was altered to Virgilius by analogy with the Latin virga ("wand") due to the magical or prophetic powers attributed to Virgil in the Middle Ages (this explanation is found in only a handful of manuscripts, however, and was probably not widespread). In Norman schools (following the French practice), the habit was to anglicize Latin names by dropping their Latin endings, hence Virgil. In the 19th century, some German-trained classicists in the United States suggested modification to Vergil, as it is closer to his original name, and is also the traditional German spelling.^{[citation needed]} Modern usage permits both, though the Oxford guide to style recommends Vergilius to avoid confusion with the 8th-century grammarian Virgilius Maro Grammaticus. Some post-Renaissance writers liked to affect the sobriquet "The Swan of Mantua".^{[citation needed]}

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• 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.
• Ziolkowski, Jan M., and Michael C. J. Putnam, eds. The Virgilian Tradition: The First Fifteen Hundred Years. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-300-10822-4
• Jenkyns, Richard (2007). Classical Epic: Homer and Virgil. London: Duckworth. ISBN 1-85399-133-3. http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Classical_epic.html?id=k0cXAQAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y. Retrieved 2012-03-20. 

External links[link]

Find more about Virgil on Wikipedia's sister projects:
	Definitions and translations from Wiktionary
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	Learning resources from Wikiversity
	News stories from Wikinews
	Quotations from Wikiquote
	Source texts from Wikisource
	Textbooks from Wikibooks

• Collected Works
  • Works of Virgil at the Perseus Digital Library
    • Latin texts, translations and commentaries
    • Aeneid translated by T. C. Williams, 1910
    • Aeneid translated by John Dryden, 1697
    • Aeneid, Eclogues and Georgics translated by J. C. Greenough, 1900
  • Works of Virgil at Theoi Project
    • Aeneid, Eclogues and Georgics translated by H. R. Fairclough, 1916
  • Works of Virgil at Sacred Texts
    • Aeneid translated by John Dryden, 1697
    • Eclogues and Georgics translated by J.W. MacKail, 1934
  • P. Vergilius Maro at The Latin Library
    • Latin texts
  • Works by Virgil at Project Gutenberg
    • Latin texts
    • Aeneid translated by E. Fairfax Taylor, 1907
    • Aeneid, Georgics and Eclogues translated by (unnamed)
    • Moretum ("The Salad") Scanned from Joseph J. Mooney (tr.), The Minor Poems of Vergil: Comprising the Culex, Dirae, Lydia, Moretum, Copa, Priapeia, and Catalepton (Birmingham: Cornish Brothers, 1916).
  • Virgil's works: text, concordances and frequency list.
  • Works by or about Virgil in libraries (WorldCat catalog)

• Biography
  • Suetonius: The Life of Virgil, an English translation.
  • Vita Vergiliana, Aelius Donatus' Life of Virgil in the original Latin.
  • Virgil.org: Aelius Donatus' Life of Virgil translated into English by David Wilson-Okamura
  • Project Gutenberg edition of Vergil—A Biography, by Tenney Frank.
  • Vergilian Chronology (in German).

• Commentary
  • "A new Aeneid for the 21st century". A review of Robert Fagles's new translation of the Aeneid in the TLS, February 9, 2007.
  • Virgil in Late Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance: an Online Bibliography
  • Virgilmurder (Jean-Yves Maleuvre's website setting forth his theory that Virgil was murdered by Augustus)
  • The Secret History of Virgil, containing a selection on the magical legends and tall tales that circulated about Virgil in the Middle Ages.
  • Interview with Virgil scholar Richard Thomas and poet David Ferry, who recently translated "The Georgics", on ThoughtCast
  • The Vergilian Society.
• SORGLL: Aeneid, Bk I, 1-49; read by Robert Sonkowsky
• SORGLL: Aeneid, BK IV, 296-396; read by Stephen Daitz

The article above was originally sourced from Nupedia and is open content.

Mitt Romney
70th Governor of Massachusetts
In office January 2, 2003 – January 4, 2007
Lieutenant	Kerry Healey
Preceded by	Jane Swift (Acting)
Succeeded by	Deval Patrick
Personal details
Born	Willard Mitt Romney (1947-03-12) March 12, 1947 (age 65) Detroit, Michigan, U.S.
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Ann Romney (m. 1969) «start: (1969)»"Marriage: Ann Romney to Mitt Romney" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Mitt_Romney)
Children	Taggart (b. 1970) Matthew (b. 1971) Joshua (b. 1975) Benjamin (b. 1978) Craig (b. 1981)
Residence	Belmont, Massachusetts Wolfeboro, New Hampshire San Diego, California
Alma mater	Brigham Young University (BA) Harvard University (MBA, JD)
Religion	The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon)
Positions	Co-founder, Bain Capital (1984–1999) CEO, Bain & Company (1991–1992) CEO, 2002 Winter Olympics Organizing Committee (1999–2002)
Signature
Website	MittRomney.com

	This article is part of a series about Mitt Romney	Mitt Romney
2012 Presidential campaign 2008 Presidential campaign Governor of Massachusetts, 2003–2007 1994 U.S. Senate election Political positions · Electoral history Public image

Willard Mitt Romney (born March 12, 1947) is an American businessman and the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party for President of the United States in the 2012 election. He was the 70th Governor of Massachusetts (2003–07).

The son of Lenore and George W. Romney (Governor of Michigan, 1963–69), he was raised in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. In 1966, after one year at Stanford University, he left the United States to spend thirty months in France as a Mormon missionary. In 1969, he married Ann Davies, and the couple had five children together. In 1971, he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Brigham Young University and, in 1975, a joint Juris Doctor and Master of Business Administration from Harvard University as a Baker Scholar. He entered the management consulting industry, which in 1977, led to a position at Bain & Company. Later serving as Chief Executive Officer, he helped bring the company out of financial crisis. In 1984, he co-founded the spin-off Bain Capital, a private equity investment firm that became highly profitable and one of the largest such firms in the nation. His net worth is estimated at $190–250 million, wealth that has helped fund his political campaigns. Active in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he served as Ward Bishop and later Stake President in his area near Boston. He ran as the Republican candidate in the 1994 U.S. Senate election in Massachusetts, losing to long-time incumbent Ted Kennedy. In 1999, he was hired as President and CEO of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the 2002 Winter Olympics and Paralympics; and he helped turn the fiscally troubled games into a success.

He was elected Governor of Massachusetts in 2002 but did not seek re-election in 2006. During his term he presided over a series of spending cuts and increases in fees that eliminated a projected $1.5 billion deficit. He also signed into law the Massachusetts health care reform legislation, the first of its kind in the nation, which provided near-universal health insurance access via state-level subsidies and individual mandates.

Romney ran for the Republican nomination in the 2008 U.S. presidential election, winning several primaries and caucuses but losing the nomination to John McCain. In the following years, he gave speeches and raised campaign funds on behalf of his fellow Republicans. In June 2011, he announced that he would seek the 2012 Republican presidential nomination; as of May 2012, he has won enough caucuses and primaries to become the party's presumptive nominee.

Early life and education[link]

Heritage and youth[link]

Willard Mitt Romney^[1] was born at Harper Hospital in Detroit, Michigan,^[2] the youngest child of George W. Romney, a self-made man who by 1948 had become an automobile executive, and Lenore Romney (née LaFount), an aspiring actress turned homemaker.^[3][4][5] His mother was a native of Logan, Utah, and his father was born in a Mormon colony in Chihuahua, Mexico, to American parents.^[6][7] He is of primarily English descent, and also has more distant Scottish and German ancestry.^[8][9][10] He is a fifth-generation member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church).^[11][12] A great-great-grandfather, Miles Romney, converted to the faith in its first decade, and another great-great-grandfather, Parley P. Pratt, was an early leader in the church during the same time.^[13]

He was preceded in birth by three siblings: Margo Lynn, Jane LaFount, and G. Scott. Mitt followed after a gap of nearly six years. He was named after family friend, hotel magnate J. Willard Marriott, and his father's cousin Milton "Mitt" Romney, a former quarterback for the Chicago Bears.^{[14][nb 1]} In 1953, the family moved from Detroit to the affluent suburb of Bloomfield Hills.^[16] In 1954, his father became the chairmen and CEO of American Motors, a company he helped avoid bankruptcy, and return to profitability.^[16] By the time Mitt was twelve, his father had become a nationally known figure in print and on television,^[17] and Mitt idolized him.^[18]

Mitt Romney began attending Cranbrook School in the seventh grade.

He attended public elementary schools^[15] until the seventh grade, when he began commuting to Cranbrook School in Bloomfield Hills, a traditional private boys' preparatory school where he was one of only a few Mormons and where many students came from backgrounds even more privileged than he.^[19][20] He was not particularly athletic and at first did not excel academically.^[18] During his sophomore year he participated in the 1962 campaign in which his father was elected Governor of Michigan.^{[nb 2]} When his parents moved to the state capitol as part of George Romney taking office, Mitt took up residence at Cranbrook's Stevens Hall.^[19] George Romney was re-elected twice; Mitt worked for him as an intern in the governor's office, and was present at the 1964 Republican National Convention when his moderate father battled conservative party nominee Barry Goldwater over issues of civil rights and ideological extremism.^[18][22] During these years, Romney had a steady set of chores and summer jobs, including working as a security guard at a Chrysler plant.^[23]

At Cranbrook he was a manager for the ice hockey team and a member of the pep squad,^[19] and during his final year joined the cross country running team.^[15] He belonged to eleven school organizations and school clubs, and started the Blue Key Club boosters group.^[19] During his final year at Cranbook, Romney improved academically, but was still not a star pupil.^[18][20] He won an award for those "whose contributions to school life are often not fully recognized through already existing channels".^[20] Romney was involved in many pranks.^{[nb 3]}

In March of his senior year, he began dating Ann Davies, two years his younger, whom he had first met in elementary school; she attended the private Kingswood School, the sister school to Cranbrook.^[27][20] The two informally agreed to marriage around the time of his June 1965 graduation.^[18]

University, France mission, marriage and children: 1965–1975[link]

Romney attended Stanford University for a year,^{[18][nb 4]} where he worked as a night security guard in order to pay for trips home to see Ann.^[28] Although the campus was becoming radicalized with the beginnings of 1960s social and political movements, he kept a well-groomed appearance and participated in pre-Big Game actions designed to protect the Stanford Axe.^[18] In May 1966, he was part of a counter-protest against a group staging a sit-in in the university administration building in opposition to draft status tests.^[18][29]