Publius Vergillius Maro, 70-19 BCE, wrote his epic poem seemingly to honor the Pax Romana of Emperor Augustus. But does his poetic skill hide a truth? An undercurrent of doubt about the sustainability of the Roman enterprise haunts the poem leading to a labyrinthine dead end foreshadowed at Rome’s founding in the brutal slaying of the Rutulian king Turnus by Aeneas. Peace via the sword will be Rome’s legacy until the coming of the Prince of Peace in the dusty Galilean outback of the Augustan empire…(to be continued in the Poetry of Truth—Reflections on the Gospel of Luke.)