'the stateliest measure ever moulded by the lips of man' - Alfred, Lord Tennyson
"the classic of all Europe" - T. S. Eliot
"I can't think of another book that has invaded me more thoroughly ... Virgil's Aeneid travels with me through life. It is a wonderful tool to think and feel with. It even has something of the uncanny about it." - Charlotte Higgins, The Guardian
The Aeneid, modelled on The Odyssey and The Iliad, is the foundational myth of Rome. Aeneas flees the burning ruins of Troy, encounters the Cyclops, Scylla and Charybdis, survives shipwreck, falls in love with Dido, Queen of Carthage, abandons her when the gods remind him of his destiny, enters the underworld where he hears a prophecy of the history of Rome right until the time of Virgil, lands in Italy, where he unwilling goes to war with a local tribe, slays their leader and marries Lavinia, the daughter Latinus, the local king, and founds Lavinium, the precursor of Rome. Through all this, Aeneas, the son of a Trojan prince and the goddess Diana, is aided and guided by the gods, thereby connecting Rome with the legends of Troy and divine providence and legitimizing the Julio-Claudian dynasty as descendants of Aeneas.
T. S. Eliot states that every European should be acquainted with the works of Virgil and that The Aeneid is "the classic of all Europe", while scholar and translator Frederick Ahl reminds us that it is to be read for enjoyment.
J. W. Mackail, a fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, was Oxford Professor of Poetry, the President of the British Academy, and a renowned classicist. He wrote extensively but is best known for this translation of The Aeneid.
Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil in English, is regarded as the foremost Roman poet, and is best known for The Aeneid, the national epic of Rome, which he created from a collection of minor myths.
