The Aeneid is the story of Aeneas, a hero for the ages. Fleeing the ruins of fallen Troy, Aeneas and his followers seem destined to wander the ancient world endlessly. Unbeknownst to them, Jupiter has ordained that the Trojan champion shall promulgate a race that will be the forebears of Rome. But first he must survive epic battles, the wrath of the gods, and a star-crossed romance with Dido, Queen of Carthage.

Filled with larger-than-life passion and war, history and legend, Virgil’s Aeneid glorified the Roman Empire—and became one of the towering works of Western civilization. Patric Dickinson’s modern verse translation captures the magnificence of Virgil’s timeless poetry, making it compelling to contemporary readers while preserving the tone, epic sweep, and grandeur of the original.

Map
Afterword: Virgil and The Aeneid
Appendix I: Relevant Dates in Roman History
Appendix II: Book-by-Book Outline
Appendix III: Glossary of Gods, Men, Peoples, Places
“A new and noble standard bearer . . . There’s a capriciousness to Fagles’s line well suited to this vast story’s ebb and flow.”
—The New York Times Book Review (front page review)

“Fagles’s new version of Virgil’s epic delicately melds the stately rhythms of the original to a contemporary cadence. . . . He illuminates the poem’s Homeric echoes while remaining faithful to Virgil’s distinctive voice.”
—The New Yorker

“Robert Fagles gives the full range of Virgil’s drama, grandeur, and pathos in vigorous, supple modern English. It is fitting that one of the great translators of The Iliad and The Odyssey in our times should also emerge as a surpassing translator of The Aeneid.”
—J. M. Coetzee