Dido

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: 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