Virgil
- LAST REVIEWED: 28 June 2012
- LAST MODIFIED: 14 December 2009
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195389661-0068
- LAST REVIEWED: 28 June 2012
- LAST MODIFIED: 14 December 2009
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195389661-0068
Introduction
Many regard Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro, 70–19 BCE; also spelled Vergil in English) as the greatest of the Roman poets. His epic poem, the Aeneid, has been of continuing importance to Western literature. On its own merits, it is a masterpiece of epic poetry and the Latin language. Products of the chaos of the Roman civil war years, Virgil’s works show a longing for a more peaceful ordering of society. His major works, the Eclogues, Georgics, and Aeneid, emphasize different aspects of this desire. Virgil’s importance to world literature is difficult to underestimate. Later poets and writers, including Dante and Milton, have venerated and imitated him.
Life
Born the son of a small landowner on 15 October 70 BCE at Andes, near Mantua in northern Italy, Virgil was educated as a child at Cremona, then moved to Milan and, for advanced rhetorical studies, to Rome itself. He lived from choice on the Bay of Naples, where he studied with the Epicurean Siro and was friendly with the poet Philodemus, who addressed a treatise to him. He was very retiring and only ever pleaded one case. He never married, and our sources report vague tales of his love of boys. He nearly lost his family farm, but it was saved by the intervention of Asinius Pollio, whom he honors in his book of Theocritan Bucolics, commonly known as the Eclogues (“selections”). After he was fully reinstated with the new regime, Virgil grew to know the literary circle of Maecenas, including Horace and other poets of the “Golden Age” of Latin poetry. After he became more established, Augustus presented him a country estate. In this atmosphere he wrote his Georgics, ostensibly a didactic epic on farming in the style of Hesiod’s Works and Days, but full of complex literary allusions, and praise of his patron. He took eleven years over the Aeneid, composed “to praise Augustus in terms of his ancestors” (Servius on Aen. I.1) or “to contain the origins of Rome and Augustus” (VSD 21). Virgil was not satisfied with his efforts and retired to Greece to spend three years correcting his poem, but he contracted a fever in 19 BCE and died on 21 September at Brundisium. Virgil had left instructions for the Aeneid (or all his poetry) to be burned, but this request was overridden by his friend Varius on Augustus’s instructions (Pliny NH 7.114, Gellius 17.10.7). The chief authority for Virgil’s life is the Vita attributed to Donatus (abbreviated VSD) but believed to be Suetonius’s composition from De poetis virtually unchanged; with other later ancient lives, it is published in the Oxford Classical Text volume Vitae Vergilianae antiquae (Hardie 1966). Naumann and Brugnoli 1984 has a good entry, but the best discussion is by Horsfall 1995.
Hardie, Colin, ed. 1966. Vitae Vergilianae antiquae: Vita Donati, Vita Servii, Vita Probiana, Vita Focae, S. Hieronymi excerpta. Oxford Classical Texts. London: Oxford Univ. Press.
Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
Included in this book is the Life of Virgil believed to be excerpted from Suetonius’s De poetis, although it is attribulted to Donatus.
Horsfall, Nicholas. 1995. A companion to the study of Virgil. Mnemosyne Supplement 151. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.
Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
Chapter 1 of this Companion: “Virgil: His life and times,” pp. 1–25, supplies the best discussion of the life of Virgil. The Companion is more manageable in size than Horsfall’s other commentaries.
Naumann, W., and G. Brugnoli. 1984. Vitae Vergilianae. In Enciclopedia Virgiliana vol. 5. Edited by Mario Geymonat, 573–588. Rome: Istituto della enciclopedia italiana.
Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
This encyclopedia, as well as giving valuable reference material on many diverse aspects of Virgilian studies, also gives a short account of the life of Virgil.
Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro). 1953. Appendix Virgiliana. Edited by Colin Hardie; text and commentary by R. Giomini. Florence, Italy: La Nuova Italia.
Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
Virgil’s alleged juvenilia are collected here.
Your subscription doesn't include the subject of this book.
Article
- Academy, The
- Acropolis of Athens, The
- Aeschylus
- Aeschylus’s Oresteia
- Aesthetics, Greek and Roman
- Africa, Roman
- Agriculture in the Classical World
- Alcibiades
- Alexander of Aphrodisias
- Alexander the Great
- Amicitia
- Ammianus Marcellinus
- Amyklaion
- Anatolian, Greek and
- Anaxagoras
- Ancient Classical Scholarship
- Ancient Greek and Latin Grammarians
- Ancient Greek Terracotta Sculpture
- Ancient Mediterranean Baths and Bathing
- Ancient Skepticism
- Ancient Thebes
- Antonines, The
- Aphrodite
- Apollodorus
- Apollonius of Rhodes
- Appendix Vergiliana
- Apuleius
- Apuleius's Platonism
- Ara Pacis Augustae
- Arabic “Theology of Aristotle”, The
- Aratus
- Archaeology, Greek
- Archaeology, Roman
- Architecture, Etruscan
- Architecture, Greek
- Architecture, Roman
- Arena Spectacles
- Aristophanes
- Aristophanes’ Clouds
- Aristophanes’ Lysistrata
- Aristotle
- Aristotle, Ancient Commentators on
- Aristotle's Categories
- Aristotle's Ethics
- Aristotle’s Metaphysics
- Aristotle's Philosophy of Mind
- Aristotle’s Physics
- Aristotle's Politics
- Art and Archaeology, Research Resources for Classical
- Art, Etruscan
- Art, Greek
- Art, Late Antique
- Artemis
- Athena
- Athenaeus of Naucratis
- Athenian Agora
- Athenian Economy
- Attic Middle Comic Fragments
- Augustine
- Augustus
- Aulularia, Plautus’s
- Aulus Gellius
- Ausonius
- Bacchylides
- Banking in the Roman World
- Bilingualism and Multilingualism in the Roman World
- Biography, Greek and Latin
- Boethius
- Britain, Roman
- Bronze Age Aegean, Death and Burial in the
- Caecilius Statius
- Caere/Cerveteri
- Callimachus of Cyrene
- Carthage, Punic
- Cato the Censor
- Catullus
- Christianity, Early
- Chronicles
- Cicero
- Cicero’s Philosophical Works
- Cicero's Pro Archia
- Cicero's Rhetorical Works
- Cities in the Roman World
- Classical Architecture in Europe and North America since 1...
- Classical Architecture in Renaissance and Early Modern Eur...
- Classical Art History, History of Scholarship of
- Classics and Cinema
- Classics and Dance
- Classics and Opera
- Classics and Shakespeare
- Classics and the Victorians
- Claudian (Claudius Claudianus)
- Cleisthenes
- Cleopatra
- Codicology/Paleography, Greek
- Collegia, Roman
- Colonization in the Roman Empire
- Colonization in the Roman Republic
- Columella
- Constantine
- Corippus
- Corpus Tibullianum Book Three
- Countryside, Roman
- Crete, Ancient
- Critias of Athens
- Death
- Death and Burial in the Roman Age
- Declamation
- Democritus
- Demography, Ancient
- Demosthenes
- Dio, Cassius
- Diodorus Siculus
- Diogenes Laertius
- Dionysus
- Donatus
- Doxography, Ancient
- Drama, Latin
- Economy, Roman
- Education
- Egypt, Hellenistic and Roman
- Emotions
- Empedocles
- Ennius
- Epictetus
- Epicurean Ethics
- Epicureanism
- Epigram, Greek Inscribed
- Epigrams, Greek Poetry
- Epigraphy, Greek
- Epigraphy, Latin
- Eratosthenes of Cyrene
- Etruscans
- Etymology, Greek Lexicon and
- Euripides
- Euripides’ Bacchae
- Euripides’ Electra
- Euripides' Orestes
- Euripides’ Trojan Women
- Fabius Pictor
- Family, Roman
- Federal States, Greek
- Festus
- Fishing and Aquaculture, Roman
- Flavian Literature
- Fragments, Greek Old Comic
- Frontiers of the Roman Empire
- Galen
- Gardens, Greek and Roman
- Gaul, Roman
- Geography
- Gracchi Brothers, The
- Greek and Roman Logic
- Greek Colonization
- Greek Domestic Architecture c. 800 bce to c. 100 bce
- Greek New Comic Fragments
- Greek Originals and Roman Copies
- Greek Prehistory Through the Bronze Age
- Greek Vase Painting
- Hellenistic Tragedy
- Heracles
- Heraclitus
- Herculaneum (Modern Ercolano)
- Herculaneum Papyri
- Heritage Management
- Hermes
- Herodas
- Herodotus
- Hesiod
- Historia Augusta
- Historiography, Greek
- Historiography, Latin
- History, Greek: Archaic to Classical Age
- History, Greek: Hellenistic
- History of Modern Classical Scholarship (Since 1750), The
- History, Roman: Early to the Republic
- History, Roman: Imperial, 31 BCE–284 CE
- History, Roman: Late Antiquity
- Homer
- Homeric Hymns
- Homo novus/New man
- Horace
- Horace's Epistles and Ars Poetica
- Horace’s Epodes
- Horace’s Odes
- Horace’s Satires
- Imperialism, Roman
- Indo-European, Greek and
- Indo-European, Latin and
- Intertextuality in Latin Poetry
- Isocrates
- Isthmia
- Jews and Judaism
- Juvenal
- Knossos, Prehistoric
- Lactantius
- Land-Surveyors
- Language, Ancient Greek
- Languages, Italic
- Latin, Medieval
- Latin Paleography, Editing, and the Transmission of Classi...
- Latin Poetry, Epigrams and Satire in
- Law, Greek
- Law, Roman
- Lexicography, Greek
- Lexicography, Latin
- Linguistics, Indo-European
- Literary Criticism, Ancient
- Literary Letters, Greek
- Literary Letters, Roman
- Literature, Hellenistic
- Literature, Neo-Latin
- Livy
- Looting and the Antiquities Market
- Lucan
- Lucilius
- Lucretius
- Lysias
- Macedonia
- Macrobius
- Maecenas
- Magic in the Ancient Greco-Roman World
- Maps
- Marcus Aurelius's Meditations
- Marcus Cornelius Fronto
- Marcus Manilius
- Maritime Archaeology of the Ancient Mediterranean
- Marius and Sulla
- Martial
- Maximianus
- Mechanics
- Menander of Athens
- Metaphysics, Greek and Roman
- Metrics, Greek
- Middle Platonism
- Military, Greek
- Military, Roman
- Miltiades of Cimon
- Minor Socratics
- Mosaics, Greek and Roman
- Mythography
- Mythology
- Narratology and the Classics
- Neoplatonism
- Nepos, Cornelius
- Nonnus
- Novel, Roman
- Novel, The Greek
- Numismatics, Greek and Roman
- Optimates/Populares
- Orosius
- Orpheus and Orphism
- Ovid
- Ovid’s Exile Poetry
- Ovid’s Love Poetry
- Ovid's Metamorphoses
- Painting, Greek
- Panaetius of Rhodes
- Panathenaic Festival, the
- Pantheon
- Papyrology: Literary and Documentary
- Parmenides
- Parthenon
- Pausanias
- Performance Culture, Greek
- Perikles (Pericles)
- Petronius
- Philo of Alexandria
- Philodemus of Gadara
- Philoponus
- Philosophy, Dialectic in Ancient Greek and Roman
- Philosophy, Greek
- Philosophy of Language, Ancient
- Philosophy, Presocratic
- Philosophy, Roman
- Philostratus, Lucius Flavius
- Pindar
- Plato
- Plato’s Apology of Socrates
- Plato’s Crito
- Plato's Laws
- Plato’s Metaphysics
- Plato’s Phaedo
- Plato’s Philebus
- Plato’s Sophist
- Plato’s Theaetetus
- Plato's Timaeus
- Plautus
- Plautus’s Amphitruo
- Plautus’s Curculio
- Plautus’s Miles Gloriosus
- Pliny the Elder
- Pliny the Younger
- Plotinus
- Plutarch's Moralia
- Poetic Meter, Latin
- Poetry, Greek: Elegiac and Lyric
- Poetry, Greek: Iambos
- Poetry, Greek: Pre-Hellenistic
- Poetry, Latin: From the Beginnings through the End of the ...
- Poetry, Latin: Imperial
- Polis
- Political Philosophy, Greek and Roman
- Polybius
- Pompeii
- Porphyry
- Posidippus of Pella
- Posidonius
- Poverty in the Roman World
- Proclus
- Prometheus
- Propertius
- Prosopography
- Prudentius
- Pyrrho of Elis
- Pythagoreanism
- Quintilian
- Religion, Greek
- Religion, Roman
- Rhetoric, Greek
- Rhetoric, Latin
- Roman Agricultural Writers, The
- Roman Consulship, The
- Roman Italy, 4th Century bce to 3rd Century ce
- Roman Kingship
- Roman Patronage
- Roman Roads and Transport
- Sacrifice
- Sallust
- Samnites
- Sappho
- Sardis, Ancient
- Scholia
- Science, Greek and Roman
- Sculpture, Etruscan
- Sculpture, Greek
- Sculpture, Roman
- Seneca the Elder
- Seneca the Younger's Philosophical Works
- Seneca’s Oedipus
- Seneca's Phaedra
- Seneca's Tragedies
- Severans, The
- Sexuality
- Silius Italicus
- Slavery, Greek
- Slavery, Roman
- Socrates
- Solon
- Sophocles
- Sophocles’ Ajax
- Sophocles’ Antigone
- Sophocles’ Electra
- Sophocles’ Fragments
- Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus
- Sophocles’ Oedipus the King
- Sophocles’ Philoctetes
- Sophocles’ Trachiniae
- Sosipatra
- Spain, Roman
- Sparta
- Sport
- Statius
- Stesichorus of Himera
- Stoicism
- Strabo
- Suetonius
- Symposion, Greek
- Tacitus
- Technology, Greek and Roman
- Terence
- Terence’s Adelphoe
- Terence’s Eunuchus
- Tertullian
- The Sophists
- The Tabula Peutingeriana (Peutinger Map)
- Theater Production, Greek
- Theocritus of Syracuse
- Theoderic the Great and Ostrogothic Italy
- Theophrastus of Eresus
- Thucydides
- Tibullus
- Topography of Athens
- Topography of Rome
- Tragic Chorus, The
- Translation and Classical Reception
- Transmission of Greek and Latin Literature
- Valerius Flaccus
- Valerius Maximus
- Varro, Marcus Terentius
- Veii
- Velleius Paterculus
- Virgil
- Vitruvius
- Wall Painting, Etruscan
- Xenophanes
- Xenophon
- Zeno of Elea
- Zeus