Aelius Donatus
A famous anecdote, recorded in the late fourth-century "vita" of Virgil by Aelius Donatus, in which the poet read the passage in Book VI in praise of Octavia's late son Marcellus and Octavia fainted with grief, has inspired several works of art. The most famous example is Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres's 1812 painting "Virgil reading The Aeneid before Augustus, Livia and Octavia" but other artists, including Jean-Joseph Taillasson, Antonio Zucchi, Jean-Baptiste Wicar, Jean-Bruno Gassies and Angelica Kaufmann, have also been inspired to depict this scene.