Aeneid

Virgil's epic poem of Aeneas — the Trojan hero who founds Rome — combining the Homeric traditions of odyssey and war with an Augustan vision of Rome's divine mission.

Rome's founding myth as epic: pietas (duty to gods, family, and state) as the Roman virtue — the cost Aeneas pays (Dido, his personal happiness) is the price Rome demands. Book II: the fall of Troy — one of the greatest passages in all literature. Book VI: the descent to the underworld where Anchises shows Aeneas Rome's future heroes — a prophecy written in hindsight. The lacrimae rerum (tears of things): 'there are tears in things' — Aeneas's recognition that the world is saturated with pathos and loss.