Introduction

On the night Troy falls, the prince Aeneas carries his old father on his back and leads his little son by the hand, guiding the survivors out of the flames. Oracles send him to Italy to found a new nation that will become Rome. On the way he loves Dido, queen of Carthage, but at the gods' command leaves her without farewell, and she kills herself on a pyre; he descends to the underworld and meets his father's ghost and the future heroes of Rome; and at last he fights a bitter war in Italy. The first half of this epic in twelve books echoes the Odyssey, the second the Iliad, yet it is steeped in a new compassion and a deep meditation on fate and duty.