THE AENEID

Virgil is one of the most admired, studied and imitated classical authors. In his masterpiece, the Aeneid, written between 29 B.C. and 19 B.C., the Latin poet transforms the story of an exile into the epic of Rome’s foundation and greatness

In fact, in the Virgilian tale, Aeneas’ journey does not appear as the migration of a foreign people but as a return to its ancient origins, by virtue of the fact that Dardanus, the Trojans’ ancestor, came from Italy. Aeneas therefore does not simply aim to found a new city, but rather to find a place where he can transfer his homeland.

In the Aeneid, the Trojan myth is associated with the ideology of the Augustan principate: Aeneas is the progenitor of Caesar Augustus and Virgil glorifies the princeps at the very beginning of his poem, where it is Zeus himself who reassures Aphrodite of the great destiny of her son’s lineage, which will have dominion over the Achaeans – the Greeks – who were victorious over Troy. In this way, the legend of Aeneas legitimises the conquests of Rome.

After two millennia, the Aeneid, with its extraordinary depth and multiplicity of voices, continues to speak to contemporary men and women, provoking, through its verses, multiple reflections on the present and on current affairs: from the devastation caused by wars to exile and the flight from a homeland that is no longer inhabitable; from the pursuit of an identity, not only personal, sometimes irretrievably lost, to the attachment to origins and family members; from the urgency of having to deal with a situation of crisis to the meeting and solidarity between peoples.

This universality of the Virgilian hero is why – as the great poet Giorgio Caproni, his staunch admirer, wrote – we are all Aeneas.