num_pages: 450
description: The supreme Roman epic and the greatest poem in Latin, the Aeneid has inspired many of the great European poets including Dante and Milton. The Trojan hero Aeneas, after surviving the sack of Troy, makes his way to the West, urged on by benevolent deities and following a destiny laid down by Jupiter, but harassed and impeded by the goddess Juno. He wins his way to Italy despite many trials, of which the greatest is the tragic outcome of his love affair with Dido, Queen of Carthage. In Italy Aeneas visits the world of the dead, and is forced to wage a fearful war with the indigenous Italian tribes before he can found his city and open the history of Rome. The Aeneid survives as a poem not only of Roman imperialism but also of the whole world of human passion, duty and suffering.
language: English
title: Oxford World's Classics: Aeneid
titlecomplete: Oxford World's Classics: Aeneid
characters: Pallas (son of Evander), Dido of Carthage, Venus (goddess), Anchises, Juno (Goddess), Misenus, Aeneas, Ascanius, Lavinia (mythology), Vulcan (God), Turnus (King of the Rutuli), Ixion, Mercury (God), Iris (Goddess), Neoptolemus, Charon (mythology), Priam, Sybil (Ancient oracle), Camilla (mythology), Jupiter (God)
genres: Classics, Epic, Fantasy, Fiction, School, Ancient, Classic Literature, Literature, Mythology, Poetry
ratings_count: 126012
places: Italy, Rome, Carthage, Sicily, Troy
publisher: Oxford University Press