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Publius Vergilius Maro (October 15, 70 BC–19 BC) known in English as Virgil, Latin poet, is the author of the Eclogues, the Georgics, and the Aeneid, this last being an epic poem of twelve books that is called the Roman Empire's national epic.
Virgil was commissioned by Augustus, through his minister Maecenas, to write an epic in praise of his regime. Virgil responded with the Aeneid, which took up the last ten years of his life.
The first six books are modeled on Homer's Odyssey - Aeneas struggles to return home from Troy, but the last six are the Roman answer to the Iliad - a series of battles between Aeneas and the Italians, culminating in the defeat and cold-blooded killing of their attractive champion, Turnus. Rome has no place for an Achilles figure: Aeneas is preoccupied by duty - to the gods, his father, and his destiny: a new-found home in the west. Those ruled by passion - like Turnus, and earlier, Dido must be sacrificed so that the new state may prevail. So the ruthless Augustus triumphed over his enemies. But we are never sure how committed Virgil is to the view that this is actually a good thing for the human race!
Virgil travelled with Augustus to Greece, where Virgil caught a fever, which he died of in Brundisium harbor, leaving the Aeneid unfinished. Augustus ordered Virgil's literary executors, Lucius Varius Rufus and Plotius Tucca, to disregard Virgil's own wish that the poem be destroyed and to publish it with as few editorial changes as possible. Incomplete or not, the Aeneid was immediately recognized as a masterpiece. It proclaimed the imperial mission of the Roman Empire but at the same time could pity Rome's victims and feel their grief. Dido and Turnus, who are both casualties of Rome's destiny, are more attractive figures than Aeneas, whose single-minded devotion to his goal may seem almost repellent to the modern reader. However, the virtue that Virgil portrays in Aeneas may be referred to as pietas, roughly translated as piety. It is his duty to the gods, his family and his homeland. Aeneas struggles between doing what he wants to as a man, and doing what he must as a virtuous hero with pietas. Aeneas' inner turmoil, and on many occassions, shortcomings, make him a far more realistic character than the heroes of the older poems such as Odysseus.
Or you can download a zipped text file with all 12 books in it here (247 KB) or find a short book by book synopsis here
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