Epics of Rome

Virgil’s Aeneid is the first complete Latin epic which remains to us, and it is arguably the most important literary work we have from ancient Rome. Virgil lived at a time of enormous political and social upheaval: this lecture will address the ways in which Virgil’s poetry refers to contemporary events. We shall consider the much-discussed position of Virgil as pro- or anti-Augustan, and think about whether this terminology is relevant.

Copyright 2014 Rhiannon Evans / La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

Where did Roman epic poetry come from? In the third century BCE Latin literature emerged in the form of drama and epic. Ancient Greek literature was influential, and Rome’s first epic was a kind of Greek-Roman hybrid, appropriately by an author with a Latin and a Greek name; it was a Greek tale, but written in a native Italian form. This lecture will explore how Roman writers founded a distinctive style by infusing Greek epic with Roman material. We’ll also see how problematic early epic is, for it unfortunately survives only in fragments.

Copyright 2014 Rhiannon Evans / La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

Where did Roman epic poetry come from? In the third century BCE Latin literature emerged in the form of drama and epic. Ancient Greek literature was influential, and Rome’s first epic was a kind of Greek-Roman hybrid, appropriately by an author with a Latin and a Greek name; it was a Greek tale, but written in a native Italian form. This lecture will explore how Roman writers founded a distinctive style by infusing Greek epic with Roman material. We’ll also see how problematic early epic is, for it unfortunately survives only in fragments.

Copyright 2014 Rhiannon Evans / La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.