Fighting his way to the heart of the palace, Pyrrhus, the son of Achilles, finds King Priam and his wife and daughters defenceless. Hear the denouement in Virgil’s Latin and follow in English here.
In Virgil’s Aeneid, the Greek invaders fight their way to the very threshold of Priam’s palace, as Aeneas joins the defenders in an attempt to stem the tide. The Greek assault is led by Pyrrhus, the son of Achilles.
Hear Virgil’s original Latin and follow in English here.
Aeneas and his men have disguised themselves in Greek armour, but now the trick backfires disastrously as they come under fire from their own side and are prevented from rescuing the prophetess Cassandra, daughter of King Priam, from the enemy. In the illustration, a Roman wall-painting, Cassandra is torn from Minerva’s shrine while, in the background, Helen of Troy is harshly reunited with her husband Menelaus.
Hear Virgil’s Latin and follow in English here.
Fighting back against the Greeks who have penetrated the city with the help of the Trojan horse, Aeneas and his men have initial success, but take a decision that will cost them dearly.
Hear Virgil’s Latin and follow in English here.
With the Greeks in the city, Aeneas gathers a desperate band of defenders as the final battle for Troy begins to unfold.
Hear Virgil’s Latin and follow in English here.
Odysseus (seen here on a later visit to the underworld) and his companions are released from the wooden horse within the walls of Troy and the scene is set for the fall of the city. Hear Virgil’s Latin and follow in English here.
After Dido’s banquet in the royal palace of Carthage, Aeneas has agreed to her request to tell the story of the fall of Troy and the years of his wanderings with his Trojan comrades-in-arms. He has just embarked on the episode of the Trojan horse, and is recalling how King Priam, and the Trojans were ticked into bringing it into the city by Sinon, who claims to hate the Greeks and narrowly to have escaped death at their hands as a human sacrifice. In fact, he is a Greek agent, and a very skilful one.
The illustration is a first-century CE wall painting from Pompeii, showing the Trojans bringing the horse into their city.
Hear Virgil’s Latin and follow in English here.
Like everyone else, Queen Dido of Carthage, giving a lavish banquet in honour of Aeneas and his band of exiled Trojans, is unaware that she is entertaining a god unawares. It is Cupid, Aeneas’s half-brother, whom their mother Venus has sent in disguise to make Dido fall in love. The idea is to make it hard for Juno, Queen of the Gods and Aeneas’s enemy, to turn the Carthaginian hosts against their Trojan guests, but Venus has miscalculated. The consequences of Dido’s passion will include tragedy and death for her, and the beginnings of an enmity between Rome and Carthage that will leave a deep mark on centuries to come. The illustration, photo by Marie-Lan Nguyen, shows Cupid at and and a Maenad in a fresco from Pompeii.
Hear Virgil’s Latin and follow in English here.
In a banqueting hall on Carthage, Cupid has been sent by his mother Venus to make Queen Dido fall in love with Aeneas, the heroic Trojan prince whose descendants will found Rome.
Hear Virgil’s Latin and follow in English here.
See the illustrated blog post here.
In the throne room of Carthage, Queen Dido gives audience to an embassy from Aeneas’s Trojans, unaware that he himself is present and about to be revealed.
Hear Virgil’s Latin and follow in English here.
Image: Betty Blythe as the Queen of Sheba, Fox Film Corporation 1921.