King Evander of the Arcadians offers Aeneas 400 cavalrymen and the support of his valiant son, Pallas, and suggests in addition where even stronger reinforcements may be available.

The illustration is Alexander the Great at the Battle of Issus, from a mosaic in the House of the Faun at Pompeii.

Hear the Latin and follow in John Dryden’s English translation here.

See the opening of the greatest English epic poem here, with links so you can compare it with its classical models, the Aeneid, Iliad and Odyssey. In the illustration by William Blake, an Archangel warns Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. In the background, beyond the Tree of Knowledge, an elephant “wreathes his lithe proboscis” (Paradise Lost Book 4, line 347).

The River Tiber has stilled his flow so that Aeneas with two ships can row upstream to meet a potential ally, King Evander of the Arcadians – whose city, Pallanteum, now stands where Rome will be in time to come. Evander gives a guided tour and welcomes Aeneas into his home, where previous visitors have included Hercules himself. The illustration is from a 5th century manuscript of Virgil in the Vatican.

Hear the Latin and follow in English here.

Catullus is self-deprecating about his new little book of poems – but he wants it to last nevertheless.

The poet holding a Roman book in the illustration is Virgil, from a fifth-century manuscript. The text below him is unpunctuated and written in continuous capitals, suggesting that reading poetry to yourself was not as easy then as it is now. The round bin on the left is a bookcase.

Hear the Latin and follow in English here.