Virgil

context: Publius Vergilius Maro (Classical Latin: [ˈpuː.blɪ.ʊs wɛrˈɡɪ.lɪ.ʊs ˈma.roː]; October 15, 70 BC – September 21, 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil /ˈvɜːrdʒᵻl/ in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues (or Bucolics), the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid. A number of minor poems, collected in the Appendix Vergiliana, are sometimes attributed to him.
qas: answers: text: Augustan
question: During which period was Vigil a poet?

answers: text: three
question: How many major works of literature is Virgil known for?

answers: text: Aeneid
question: Which major Latin epic is Virgil known for?

answers: text: Publius Vergilius Maro
question: What is Virgil's full name?

answers: text: Appendix Vergiliana
question: Which collection of minor poems are sometimes attributed to Virgil?

context: Virgil is traditionally ranked as one of Rome's greatest poets. His Aeneid has been considered the national epic of ancient Rome from the time of its composition to the present day. Modeled after Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, the Aeneid follows the Trojan refugee Aeneas as he struggles to fulfill his destiny and arrive on the shores of Italy—in Roman mythology the founding act of Rome. Virgil's work has had wide and deep influence on Western literature, most notably Dante's Divine Comedy, in which Virgil appears as Dante's guide through hell and purgatory.
qas: answers: text: Aeneid
question: Which of Virgil's works is considered the national epic of ancient Rome?

answers: text: Iliad and Odyssey
question: Which works did Virgil model the Aeneid after?

answers: text: Aeneas
question: Who is the main character in the Aeneid?

answers: text: fulfill his destiny and arrive on the shores of Italy
question: What was Aeneas trying to accomplish in the Aeneid?

answers: text: Virgil
question: Who appears as Dante's guide through hell and purgatory in the Divine Comedy?

context: Virgil's biographical tradition is thought to depend on a lost biography by Varius, Virgil's editor, which was incorporated into the biography by Suetonius and the commentaries of Servius and Donatus, the two great commentators on Virgil's poetry. Although the commentaries no doubt record much factual information about Virgil, some of their evidence can be shown to rely on inferences made from his poetry and allegorizing; thus, Virgil's biographical tradition remains problematic.
qas: answers: text: Varius
question: Who was Virgil's editor?

answers: text: Servius and Donatus
question: Whose two commentaries were incorporated into Virgil's biography by Suetonius?

answers: text: inferences made from his poetry and allegorizing
question: What do the comentaries rely on for some of their information about Virgil?

answers: text: problematic
question: Is Virgil's biographical tradition easily researched or is it problematic?

context: The tradition holds that Virgil was born in the village of Andes, near Mantua in Cisalpine Gaul. Analysis of his name has led to beliefs that he descended from earlier Roman colonists. Modern speculation ultimately is not supported by narrative evidence either from his own writings or his later biographers. Macrobius says that Virgil's father was of a humble background; however, scholars generally believe that Virgil was from an equestrian landowning family which could afford to give him an education. He attended schools in Cremona, Mediolanum, Rome and Naples. After considering briefly a career in rhetoric and law, the young Virgil turned his talents to poetry.
qas: answers: text: Andes
question: In which village does tradition believe Virgil was born?

answers: text: Cremona, Mediolanum, Rome and Naples
question: In which cities did Virgil attend schools?

answers: text: rhetoric and law
question: What other career did Virgil consider?

answers: text: equestrian landowning
question: Which type of family do scholars generally believe Virgil belonged to?

answers: text: humble
question: Does Macrobius believe Virgil's father came from a distinguished or humble background?

context: According to the commentators, Virgil received his first education when he was five years old and he later went to Cremona, Milan, and finally Rome to study rhetoric, medicine, and astronomy, which he soon abandoned for philosophy. From Virgil's admiring references to the neoteric writers Pollio and Cinna, it has been inferred that he was, for a time, associated with Catullus' neoteric circle. However schoolmates considered Virgil extremely shy and reserved, according to Servius, and he was nicknamed "Parthenias" or "maiden" because of his social aloofness. Virgil seems to have suffered bad health throughout his life and in some ways lived the life of an invalid. According to the Catalepton, while in the Epicurean school of Siro the Epicurean at Naples, he began to write poetry. A group of small works attributed to the youthful Virgil by the commentators survive collected under the title Appendix Vergiliana, but are largely considered spurious by scholars. One, the Catalepton, consists of fourteen short poems, some of which may be Virgil's, and another, a short narrative poem titled the Culex ("The Gnat"), was attributed to Virgil as early as the 1st century AD.
qas: answers: text: rhetoric, medicine, and astronomy
question: Which three studies did Virgil abandon for philosophy?

answers: text: extremely shy and reserved
question: How was Virgil regarded socially by his schoolmates?

answers: text: Parthenias
question: What was Virgil's nickname?

answers: text: social aloofness
question: How did Virgil earn his nickname "Parthenias" or "maiden"?

answers: text: the Culex
question: Which short narrative poem was attributed to Virgil as early as the 1st century AD?

context: The biographical tradition asserts that Virgil began the hexameter Eclogues (or Bucolics) in 42 BC and it is thought that the collection was published around 39–38 BC, although this is controversial. The Eclogues (from the Greek for "selections") are a group of ten poems roughly modeled on the bucolic hexameter poetry ("pastoral poetry") of the Hellenistic poet Theocritus. After his victory in the Battle of Philippi in 42 BC, fought against the army led by the assassins of Julius Caesar, Octavian tried to pay off his veterans with land expropriated from towns in northern Italy, supposedly including, according to the tradition, an estate near Mantua belonging to Virgil. The loss of his family farm and the attempt through poetic petitions to regain his property have traditionally been seen as Virgil's motives in the composition of the Eclogues. This is now thought to be an unsupported inference from interpretations of the Eclogues. In Eclogues 1 and 9, Virgil indeed dramatizes the contrasting feelings caused by the brutality of the land expropriations through pastoral idiom, but offers no indisputable evidence of the supposed biographic incident. While some readers have identified the poet himself with various characters and their vicissitudes, whether gratitude by an old rustic to a new god (Ecl. 1), frustrated love by a rustic singer for a distant boy (his master's pet, Ecl. 2), or a master singer's claim to have composed several eclogues (Ecl. 5), modern scholars largely reject such efforts to garner biographical details from works of fiction, preferring to interpret an author's characters and themes as illustrations of contemporary life and thought. The ten Eclogues present traditional pastoral themes with a fresh perspective. Eclogues 1 and 9 address the land confiscations and their effects on the Italian countryside. 2 and 3 are pastoral and erotic, discussing both homosexual love (Ecl. 2) and attraction toward people of any gender (Ecl. 3). Eclogue 4, addressed to Asinius Pollio, the so-called "Messianic Eclogue" uses the imagery of the golden age in connection with the birth of a child (who the child was meant to be has been subject to debate). 5 and 8 describe the myth of Daphnis in a song contest, 6, the cosmic and mythological song of Silenus; 7, a heated poetic contest, and 10 the sufferings of the contemporary elegiac poet Cornelius Gallus. Virgil is credited[by whom?] in the Eclogues with establishing Arcadia as a poetic ideal that still resonates in Western literature and visual arts and setting the stage for the development of Latin pastoral by Calpurnius Siculus, Nemesianus, and later writers.
qas: answers: text: Theocritus
question: Which Hellenistic poet was known for bucolic hexameter poetry?

answers: text: Octavian
question: Who tried to pay off veterans with land, some of which possibly belonged to Virgil?

answers: text: Eclogues
question: Virgil's loss of his famiyl farm and the attempt to regain his property though poetry was the inferred motive for which work?

answers: text: Asinius Pollio
question: To whom was Eclogue 4 addressed to?

answers: text: Ecl. 2
question: Which Eclogues discusses homosexual love?

context: Sometime after the publication of the Eclogues (probably before 37 BC), Virgil became part of the circle of Maecenas, Octavian's capable agent d'affaires who sought to counter sympathy for Antony among the leading families by rallying Roman literary figures to Octavian's side. Virgil came to know many of the other leading literary figures of the time, including Horace, in whose poetry he is often mentioned, and Varius Rufus, who later helped finish the Aeneid.
qas: answers: text: Varius Rufus
question: Who helped finish the Aeneid?

answers: text: before 37 BC
question: When where the Eclogues likely published?

answers: text: Maecenas
question: What were Octavian' s agent d'affaires called?

answers: text: Horace
question: Which leading literary figure often mentioned Virgin in his poetry?

context: At Maecenas' insistence (according to the tradition) Virgil spent the ensuing years (perhaps 37–29 BC) on the long didactic hexameter poem called the Georgics (from Greek, "On Working the Earth") which he dedicated to Maecenas. The ostensible theme of the Georgics is instruction in the methods of running a farm. In handling this theme, Virgil follows in the didactic ("how to") tradition of the Greek poet Hesiod's Works and Days and several works of the later Hellenistic poets. The four books of the Georgics focus respectively on raising crops and trees (1 and 2), livestock and horses (3), and beekeeping and the qualities of bees (4). Well-known passages include the beloved Laus Italiae of Book 2, the prologue description of the temple in Book 3, and the description of the plague at the end of Book 3. Book 4 concludes with a long mythological narrative, in the form of an epyllion which describes vividly the discovery of beekeeping by Aristaeus and the story of Orpheus' journey to the underworld. Ancient scholars, such as Servius, conjectured that the Aristaeus episode replaced, at the emperor's request, a long section in praise of Virgil's friend, the poet Gallus, who was disgraced by Augustus, and who committed suicide in 26 BC.
qas: answers: text: Georgics
question: Which long didactic hexameter poem did Virgil work on for several years?

answers: text: Maecenas
question: To whom was Georgics dedicated to?

answers: text: running a farm
question: The theme of Georgics is instruction in the methods of what?

answers: text: Gallus
question: Which of Virgil's poet friends committed suicide in 26 BC?

answers: text: Augustus
question: Who was Gallus disgraced by?

context: The Georgics' tone wavers between optimism and pessimism, sparking critical debate on the poet's intentions, but the work lays the foundations for later didactic poetry. Virgil and Maecenas are said to have taken turns reading the Georgics to Octavian upon his return from defeating Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC.
qas: answers: text: Battle of Actium
question: Octavian defeated Antony and Cleopatra at which battle?

answers: text: 31 BC
question: When did Octavian return from the Battle of Actium?

answers: text: Maecenas
question: Who took turns with Virgil to read the Georgics to Octavian?

context: The Aeneid is widely considered Virgil's finest work and one of the most important poems in the history of western literature. Virgil worked on the Aeneid during the last eleven years of his life (29–19 BC), commissioned, according to Propertius, by Augustus. The epic poem consists of 12 books in dactylic hexameter verse which describe the journey of Aeneas, a warrior fleeing the sack of Troy, to Italy, his battle with the Italian prince Turnus, and the foundation of a city from which Rome would emerge. The Aeneid's first six books describe the journey of Aeneas from Troy to Rome. Virgil made use of several models in the composition of his epic; Homer, the preeminent author of classical epic, is everywhere present, but Virgil also makes special use of the Latin poet Ennius and the Hellenistic poet Apollonius of Rhodes among the various other writers to which he alludes. Although the Aeneid casts itself firmly into the epic mode, it often seeks to expand the genre by including elements of other genres such as tragedy and aetiological poetry. Ancient commentators noted that Virgil seems to divide the Aeneid into two sections based on the poetry of Homer; the first six books were viewed as employing the Odyssey as a model while the last six were connected to the Iliad.
qas: answers: text: The Aeneid
question: Which of Virgil's works is widely considered his finest?

answers: text: Augustus
question: Who commissioned the Aeneid according to Propertius?

answers: text: 12
question: How many books are included in The Aeneid?

answers: text: Odyssey
question: Which of Homer's works did the first six books of the Aeneid model after?

answers: text: Iliad
question: Which of Homer's works did the last six books of the Aeneid connect to?

context: Book 1 (at the head of the Odyssean section) opens with a storm which Juno, Aeneas' enemy throughout the poem, stirs up against the fleet. The storm drives the hero to the coast of Carthage, which historically was Rome's deadliest foe. The queen, Dido, welcomes the ancestor of the Romans, and under the influence of the gods falls deeply in love with him. At a banquet in Book 2, Aeneas tells the story of the sack of Troy, the death of his wife, and his escape, to the enthralled Carthaginians, while in Book 3 he recounts to them his wanderings over the Mediterranean in search of a suitable new home. Jupiter in Book 4 recalls the lingering Aeneas to his duty to found a new city, and he slips away from Carthage, leaving Dido to commit suicide, cursing Aeneas and calling down revenge in a symbolic anticipation of the fierce wars between Carthage and Rome. In Book 5, Aeneas' father Anchises dies and funeral games are celebrated for him. On reaching Cumae, in Italy in Book 6, Aeneas consults the Cumaean Sibyl, who conducts him through the Underworld where Aeneas meets the dead Anchises who reveals Rome's destiny to his son.
qas: answers: text: Juno
question: Who is Aeneas' enemy throughout the Aeneid?

answers: text: Dido
question: Which queen committed suicide in Book 4 of the Aeneid?

answers: text: 5
question: In which book does Aeneas' father die?

answers: text: Anchises
question: Who reveals Rome's destiny to Aeneas?

answers: text: Sibyl
question: Who guides Aeneas through the Underworld?

context: Book 7 (beginning the Iliadic half) opens with an address to the muse and recounts Aeneas' arrival in Italy and betrothal to Lavinia, daughter of King Latinus. Lavinia had already been promised to Turnus, the king of the Rutulians, who is roused to war by the Fury Allecto, and Amata Lavinia's mother. In Book 8, Aeneas allies with King Evander, who occupies the future site of Rome, and is given new armor and a shield depicting Roman history. Book 9 records an assault by Nisus and Euryalus on the Rutulians, Book 10, the death of Evander's young son Pallas, and 11 the death of the Volscian warrior princess Camilla and the decision to settle the war with a duel between Aeneas and Turnus. The Aeneid ends in Book 12 with the taking of Latinus' city, the death of Amata, and Aeneas' defeat and killing of Turnus, whose pleas for mercy are spurned. The final book ends with the image of Turnus' soul lamenting as it flees to the underworld.
qas: answers: text: Lavinia
question: To whom is Aeneas betrothed?

answers: text: King Evander
question: Which King does Aeneas ally with in Book 8 of the Aeneid?

answers: text: Turnus
question: Who had Lavinia already been promised to?

answers: text: Turnus
question: Who is roused to war by the Fury Allecto and Amata Lavinia's mother?

context: Critics of the Aeneid focus on a variety of issues. The tone of the poem as a whole is a particular matter of debate; some see the poem as ultimately pessimistic and politically subversive to the Augustan regime, while others view it as a celebration of the new imperial dynasty. Virgil makes use of the symbolism of the Augustan regime, and some scholars see strong associations between Augustus and Aeneas, the one as founder and the other as re-founder of Rome. A strong teleology, or drive towards a climax, has been detected in the poem. The Aeneid is full of prophecies about the future of Rome, the deeds of Augustus, his ancestors, and famous Romans, and the Carthaginian Wars; the shield of Aeneas even depicts Augustus' victory at Actium against Mark Antony and Cleopatra VII in 31 BC. A further focus of study is the character of Aeneas. As the protagonist of the poem, Aeneas seems to waver constantly between his emotions and commitment to his prophetic duty to found Rome; critics note the breakdown of Aeneas' emotional control in the last sections of the poem where the "pious" and "righteous" Aeneas mercilessly slaughters Turnus.
qas: answers: text: 31 BC
question: When did Augustus' victory at Actium against Mark Antony and Ceopatra VII occur?

answers: text: Aeneas
question: Who is the protagonist of the Aeneid?

answers: text: Turnus
question: Who is mercilessly slaughtered by Aeneas?

answers: text: Augustus
question: Who is the founder of Rome which some scholars see strong associations with Aeneas?

context: The Aeneid appears to have been a great success. Virgil is said to have recited Books 2, 4, and 6 to Augustus; and Book 6 apparently caused Augustus' sister Octavia to faint. Although the truth of this claim is subject to scholarly scepticism, it has served as a basis for later art, such as Jean-Baptiste Wicar's Virgil Reading the Aeneid.
qas: answers: text: 6
question: Which book supposedly caused Augustus' sister to faint?

answers: text: Virgil Reading the Aeneid
question: What was the title of Jean-Baptiste Wicar's artwork inspired by the Aeneid?

answers: text: Augustus
question: Who did Virgil recite Books 2, 4, and 6 of the Aeneid to?

context: According to the tradition, Virgil traveled to Greece in about 19 BC to revise the Aeneid. After meeting Augustus in Athens and deciding to return home, Virgil caught a fever while visiting a town near Megara. After crossing to Italy by ship, weakened with disease, Virgil died in Brundisium harbor on September 21, 19 BC. Augustus ordered Virgil's literary executors, Lucius Varius Rufus and Plotius Tucca, to disregard Virgil's own wish that the poem be burned, instead ordering it published with as few editorial changes as possible. As a result, the text of the Aeneid that exists may contain faults which Virgil was planning to correct before publication. However, the only obvious imperfections are a few lines of verse that are metrically unfinished (i.e. not a complete line of dactylic hexameter). Some scholars have argued that Virgil deliberately left these metrically incomplete lines for dramatic effect. Other alleged imperfections are subject to scholarly debate.
qas: answers: text: Greece
question: According to tradition, where did Virgil travel in 19 BC to revise the Aeneid?

answers: text: Brundisium harbor
question: Where did Virgil die?

answers: text: September 21, 19 BC
question: What date did Virgil die?

answers: text: Lucius Varius Rufus and Plotius Tucca
question: Who were Virgil's literary executors?

answers: text: the poem be burned
question: What wish of Virgil's did Lucius Varius Rufus and Plotius Tucca disregard?

context: The works of Virgil almost from the moment of their publication revolutionized Latin poetry. The Eclogues, Georgics, and above all the Aeneid became standard texts in school curricula with which all educated Romans were familiar. Poets following Virgil often refer intertextually to his works to generate meaning in their own poetry. The Augustan poet Ovid parodies the opening lines of the Aeneid in Amores 1.1.1–2, and his summary of the Aeneas story in Book 14 of the Metamorphoses, the so-called "mini-Aeneid", has been viewed as a particularly important example of post-Virgilian response to the epic genre. Lucan's epic, the Bellum Civile has been considered an anti-Virgilian epic, disposing with the divine mechanism, treating historical events, and diverging drastically from Virgilian epic practice. The Flavian poet Statius in his 12-book epic Thebaid engages closely with the poetry of Virgil; in his epilogue he advises his poem not to "rival the divine Aeneid, but follow afar and ever venerate its footsteps." In Silius Italicus, Virgil finds one of his most ardent admirers. With almost every line of his epic Punica Silius references Virgil. Indeed, Silius is known to have bought Virgil's tomb and worshipped the poet. Partially as a result of his so-called "Messianic" Fourth Eclogue—widely interpreted later to have predicted the birth of Jesus Christ—Virgil was in later antiquity imputed to have the magical abilities of a seer; the Sortes Vergilianae, the process of using Virgil's poetry as a tool of divination, is found in the time of Hadrian, and continued into the Middle Ages. In a similar vein Macrobius in the Saturnalia credits the work of Virgil as the embodiment of human knowledge and experience, mirroring the Greek conception of Homer. Virgil also found commentators in antiquity. Servius, a commentator of the 4th century AD, based his work on the commentary of Donatus. Servius' commentary provides us with a great deal of information about Virgil's life, sources, and references; however, many modern scholars find the variable quality of his work and the often simplistic interpretations frustrating.
qas: answers: text: Silius Italicus
question: Who was one of Virgil's most ardent admirers who referenced Virgil in almost every line of his epic?

answers: text: Punica
question: .What was the title of Silius Italicus' epic in which Virgil was referenced in almost every line?

answers: text: Silius
question: Who bought Virgil's tomb?

answers: text: Fourth Eclogue
question: Which of Virgil's works was later widely interpreted to have predicted the birth of Jesus Christ?

context: Even as the Western Roman empire collapsed, literate men acknowledged that Virgil was a master poet. Gregory of Tours read Virgil, whom he quotes in several places, along with some other Latin poets, though he cautions that "we ought not to relate their lying fables, lest we fall under sentence of eternal death."
qas: answers: text: Gregory of Tours
question: Who cautioned "we ought not to relate their lying fables, lest we fall under sentence of eternal death"?

answers: text: Western Roman
question: Literate men acknowledged Virgil as a master poet despite what empire collapsing?

answers: text: master
question: Did literate men acknowledge Virgil as a master or novice poet?

context: Dante made Virgil his guide in Hell and the greater part of Purgatory in The Divine Comedy. Dante also mentions Virgil in De vulgari eloquentia, along with Ovid, Lucan and Statius, as one of the four regulati poetae (ii, vi, 7).
qas: answers: text: Divine Comedy
question: In which of Dante's works was Virgil a guide through Hell and Purgatory?

answers: text: Dante
question: Who was the author of the Divine Comedy?

answers: text: Virgil
question: Who was Dante's guide through Purgatory and Hell in the Divine Comedy?

context: In the Middle Ages, Virgil's reputation was such that it inspired legends associating him with magic and prophecy. From at least the 3rd century, Christian thinkers interpreted Eclogues 4, which describes the birth of a boy ushering in a golden age, as a prediction of Jesus' birth. As such, Virgil came to be seen on a similar level as the Hebrew prophets of the Bible as one who had heralded Christianity.
qas: answers: text: Eclogues 4
question: Which of Virgil's works was said by some to have predicted Jesus' birth?

answers: text: Christianity
question: Which religion did some consider Virgil to have heralded in?

answers: text: Middle Ages
question: During which time period did Virgil's reputation inspire legends associating him with magic and prophecy?

context: Possibly as early as the second century AD, Virgil's works were seen as having magical properties and were used for divination. In what became known as the Sortes Vergilianae (Virgilian Lots), passages would be selected at random and interpreted to answer questions. In the 12th century, starting around Naples but eventually spreading widely throughout Europe, a tradition developed in which Virgil was regarded as a great magician. Legends about Virgil and his magical powers remained popular for over two hundred years, arguably becoming as prominent as his writings themselves. Virgil's legacy in medieval Wales was such that the Welsh version of his name, Fferyllt or Pheryllt, became a generic term for magic-worker, and survives in the modern Welsh word for pharmacist, fferyllydd.
qas: answers: text: Naples
question: Where did the tradition start which regarded Virgil as a great magician?

answers: text: over two hundred years
question: How long did legends of Virgil's magical powers remain popular?

answers: text: fferyllydd
question: What is the modern Welsh word for phramacist?

answers: text: medieval Wales
question: Where did Virgil's name become a generic term for magic-worker?

answers: text: 12th century
question: When did Virgil's reputation as a great magician begin?

context: The legend of Virgil in his Basket arose in the Middle Ages, and is often seen in art and mentioned in literature as part of the Power of Women literary topos, demonstrating the disruptive force of female attractiveness on men. In this story Virgil became enamoured of a beautiful woman, sometimes described as the emperor's daughter or mistress and called Lucretia. She played him along and agreed to an assignation at her house, which he was to sneak into at night by climbing into a large basket let down from a window. When he did so he was only hoisted halfway up the wall and then left him trapped there into the next day, exposed to public ridicule. The story paralleled that of Phyllis riding Aristotle. Among other artists depicting the scene, Lucas van Leyden made a woodcut and later an engraving.
qas: answers: text: Middle Ages
question: During which time period did the legend of Virgil in his Basket arise?

answers: text: Lucretia
question: What is the name of the beautiful woman who Virgil enamoured?

answers: text: Phyllis riding Aristotle
question: Which story did Virgil being left halfway in basket parallel?

answers: text: Lucas van Leyden
question: Which artist made a woodcut and later an engraving of Virgil and his basket?

context: The structure known as "Virgil's tomb" is found at the entrance of an ancient Roman tunnel (also known as "grotta vecchia") in Piedigrotta, a district two miles from the centre of Naples, near the Mergellina harbor, on the road heading north along the coast to Pozzuoli. While Virgil was already the object of literary admiration and veneration before his death, in the Middle Ages his name became associated with miraculous powers, and for a couple of centuries his tomb was the destination of pilgrimages and veneration.
qas: answers: text: Middle Ages
question: During which time period did Virgil's name become associated with miraclous powers?

answers: text: Piedigrotta
question: In which district is "Virgil's tomb" located?

answers: text: grotta vecchia
question: What is the entrance of the ancient Roman tunnel where "Virgil's tomb" is located also called?

context: In the Late Empire and Middle Ages Vergilius was spelled Virgilius. Two explanations are commonly given for this alteration. One deduces a false etymology associated with the word virgo ("maiden" in Latin) due to Virgil's excessive, "maiden"-like modesty. Alternatively, some argue that Vergilius was altered to Virgilius by analogy with the Latin virga ("wand") due to the magical or prophetic powers attributed to Virgil in the Middle Ages (this explanation is found in only a handful of manuscripts, however, and was probably not widespread). In Norman schools (following the French practice), the habit was to anglicize Latin names by dropping their Latin endings, hence Virgil. In the 19th century, some German-trained classicists in the United States suggested modification to Vergil, as it is closer to his original name, and is also the traditional German spelling.[citation needed] Modern usage permits both, though the Oxford guide to style recommends Vergilius to avoid confusion with the 8th-century grammarian Virgilius Maro Grammaticus. Some post-Renaissance writers liked to affect the sobriquet "The Swan of Mantua".[citation needed]
qas: answers: text: Vergilius
question: Besides Virgilius, which other spelling is permitted in modern usage?

answers: text: Late Empire and Middle Ages
question: During which time period was Vergilius spelled Virgilius?

answers: text: 19th
question: In what century did some German-trained classicists in the US suggest modifying the common usage to Vergil?

answers: text: Oxford
question: Which style guide recommends using Vergilius to avoid confusion with Virgilius Maro Grammaticus?