Enemies beware, as Aeneas arrives on the battlefield and turns the day. Hear Virgil’s Latin and follow in English here, and see the illustrated blog post here.
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.
Today’s new Latin poem is from Virgil’s Aeneid. It sets the scene for Aeneas, as an honoured guest at the court of Dido, Queen of Carthage, to describe the fall of Troy. He is a Trojan prince, and the story he tells will be first-hand, vivid and full of drama, and a rarer subject in ancient literature than you might suppose – Homer’s Iliad ends before Troy falls. As Book 2 begins, Aeneas’s superhuman dignity and charisma are meant to remind us of his descendant, the Emperor Augustus.
Leaving Tartarus behind in his underworld journey, Aeneas arrives at the home of the blessed, the Elysian Fields. He will see many illustrious warriors there: the ones in the illustration are King Leonidas and the Spartans before the battle of Thermopylae, as imagined by Jacques-Louis David.
Hear the Latin and follow in English here.
Aeneas succeeds in rescuing his son and father, but cannot save his wife, Creusa. Hear the story in Latin and follow in English here.
