6. Ancient Rome’s Greatest Poet
And so, the night being over,
I returned to my companions where they were.
When I got there, I was amazed to see
How many others, women and men, had come,
Wretched survivors of the fall of the city,
To join us in exile and the journey,
A heartbreaking company, come from everywhere
Ready in their hearts and with their fortunes,
To follow me wherever I was going.
Virgil – excerpt from closing verses of Aeneid II
Publius Vergilius Maro, commonly known as Virgil (70 – 19 BC), penned Latin literature’s greatest poems. He is best known for three works: the Georgics, the Bucolics, and ancient Rome’s national epic, the Aeneid. His writings revolutionized Latin poetry and became the standard text from which all schoolchildren learned and with which all educated Romans were familiar. Born of peasant stock, Virgil’s love of the Italian countryside is reflected in his poetry, particularly the Bucolics. He received an early education in Cremona and Milan, then studied rhetoric and philosophy in Rome. He picked up Epicureanism from an instructor, and that tendency is reflected in his early works. Epicureanism then gradually gave way to Stoicism, which marked his poems for the bulk of his career.
