Many readers have seen Aeneas as a positive figure and one who would please Romeʼs leaders. Finally, the Trojans land in Italy and found a city where Rome will later stand. Along the way, the gods-especially Juno and Aeneasʼs mother, Venus-throw both obstacles and aids in his path. In the poem, Aeneas leads his followers west from Troy, which the Greeks have sacked, in search of somewhere to start a new city. Itʼs also a national origin story, said Prof. Shadi Bartsch-Zimmer-“and that makes it a different kind of poem.”

Unlike the Odyssey and the Iliad, Vergilʼs response to the Homeric epics is not just that of an individual hero. Entering its third millennium, the Aeneid can still speak immediately to the reader.It was 29 B.C., two years into the reign of the emperor Augustus, when the Roman poet Vergil began writing his great epic, the Aeneid. In the last two thousand years the Aeneid has been a pagan bible, a Latin style manual, a moral allegory, a document of European unity, a pacifist document - and one of the most-read and studied works of world literature of all time. Because of its generic inclusiveness and linguistic brilliance, the Aeneid spread its influence across every form of written discourse for centuries. He expanded the range of the Latin epic, using elements from most types of late classical literature, while refining the linguistic and metrical possibilities of the epic genre. The Aeneid represents a pivotal point in western literature: Virgil drew on the whole of Greek and Latin literature to create this epic. The Aeneid also universalizes Roman experience, ideals, and aspirations. The Aeneid was composed at least in part to celebrate 'truth, justice, and the Roman way' and to promote the rebirth of the Roman way of life under Augustus. The Aeneid and the Bible were probably the two most consistently read books in Western Europe for two thousand years. Early Christian writers who attempted to reject Virgil could escape neither his style nor his attitudes. Even in his own lifetime Virgil's poetry had become a school text.

This decision affected the course of literary history and the development of western culture.

The emperor Augustus refused the request. When Virgil was dying in 17 BC he asked for the unfinished Aeneid to be destroyed.

The aeneid by virgil