(click here for music.)

Name: Publius Vergilius Maro
Born: 70 BC in Mantua, Roman Empire
Died: 19 BC in Rome
Notable Accomplishment: wrote epic poem, The Aeneid.
The Basics: Virgil spent his entire life as a poet.  He was born into the Roman world the son of a patrician family, and educated as such a son of such class was.  His talents caught the sight of the Roman emporer Caeser Augustus who commissioned him to create an epic poem about the glory of the Roman Empire that would rival the great works of Homer.  Before his death, he requested that his manuscript for the Aeneid be destroyed.  Fortunately, the emporer saw otherwise.

Virgil Links

Virgil's Aeneid
http://classics.mit.edu/Virgil/aeneid.sum.html

The Classics Pages
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~loxias/latin.htm

Virgil's Aeneid - By Chance Alone?
http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-146.htm

Short biography
http://daemon.ilt.columbia.edu/academic/digitexts/vergil/bio_vergil.html
 

back to the speech
main menu