Aeneid

Visiting Scholars

Open House | Virgil’s Aeneid 4 and 6, with Gregory Nagy

We were excited to welcome back Gregory Nagy of Harvard University, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature and the Director of the Center for Hellenic Studies, Washington, DC. The topic of the discussion is Virgil’s Aeneid, Book 4 and Book 6. You can view the event down below or on our YouTube channel. Mentioned in the discussion: Fontaine, Michael. “Aeneas in Palestine” Eidolon. 2015.04.27… Read more

Book Club

Book Club | February 2017: Virgil Aeneid

After the gods had seen fit to destroy Asia’s power and Priam’s innocent people, and proud Ilium had fallen, and all of Neptune’s Troy breathed smoke from the soil, we were driven by the gods’ prophecies to search out distant exile, and deserted lands, and we built a fleet below Antandros and the peaks of Phrygian Ida, unsure where fate would carry us, or where we’d be allowed to settle,… Read more

Gallery

Gallery: Virgil and Augustan Period

Wall Painting, enthroned couple (50–40BCE)Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York  A few years ago, I went to an exhibition about Augustus at the Grand Palais. Virgil, who lived during the same era, wrote the Aeneid. This epic poem tells the story of the Trojan hero Aeneas and his adventures to found a new city in Italy and to start a new generation for the beginning of Rome. Augustus is cited… Read more

Book Club

Book Club | Virgil: Aeneid

I sing of arms and the man, he who, exiled by fate, first came from the coast of Troy to Italy, and to Lavinian shores – hurled about endlessly by land and sea, by the will of the gods, by cruel Juno’s remorseless anger, long suffering also in war, until he founded a city and brought his gods to Latium: from that the Latin people came, the lords of Alba… Read more

Visiting Scholars

Open House | From Homer to Virgil, with Gregory Nagy

“The poetry of Virgil, I take it as a given, rivals that of Homer. Historically, Virgil the Classic even displaced Homer the Classic in the Latin culture of the Roman empire (though not in the Greek) – already in the age of Virgil. But the question is: what is it exactly about the poetry of Virgil that made it rival the poetry of Homer in the first place – not… Read more