1. The Life and Works of Publius Vergilius Maro

2. Vergil was born on October 15, 70 BC in the village of Andes in the region of Mantua, located in Cisalpine Gaul

6. He went to Rome to study:
rhetoric
astronomy
medicine

7. He later abandoned these and studied philosophy in the Epicurean school of Siro

9. In 42 BC after the Civil War between Octavian and Brutus as a reward for the soldiers, land was confiscated from Roman landowners and redistributed to the veterans

10. One of these lands was Vergil’s family farm in Mantua

11. Vergil’s poetry first began to be published in the mid-30s with his Eclogues.

12. It is in the Eclogues where he explores the genre of pastoral poetry and the impact of the Civil War as well as the loss of his family estate

13. Vergil soon after became a member of Maecenas’ famed literary circle, which included members such as Horace and Varius Rufus

14. Horace
Varius Rufus

15. From BC Vergil worked on his work, the Georgics which is a literary analogy between farming and life

16. Soon after the publication of the Georgics and Octavian’s defeat over Antony and Cleopatra, Octavian (now called Augustus) requested a historical epic that praised his regime and Roman values from Vergil

17. Vergil responded with his Aeneid, which he composed during the last ten years of his life, from BC

20. Vergil died before completing the epic and it is still debated whether or not he meant for the epic to end the way in which it does

21. We know that Vergil became very ill on a journey from Rome and his last words were for the epic to be burned along with him since it was not completed

22. Whether or not it was not completed because it still needed revisions or he wanted to rewrite certain ends-we will never know