Virgil's epic poem — written 29–19 BCE — following Aeneas from the fall of Troy to the founding of Rome — the supreme Latin epic and the foundational text of Roman imperial identity.
Creates the Roman national epic — The Aeneid legitimizes Rome's imperial mission through mythological genealogy (Aeneas as founder; Julius Caesar and Augustus as his descendants); its combination of Homeric epic form with Roman destiny makes it the most politically effective literary work of antiquity.
No recorded contemporaries.
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