Virgil

Publius Vergilius Maro, known as Virgil (70–19 BC), was a Roman poet born in Andes to a farming family. Educated in rhetoric and Epicurean philosophy, his life changed when his family's estate was seized after Julius Caesar's death. His poetic petitions secured patronage from Maecenas and Emperor Augustus. Virgil established his literary fame with Eclogues and Georgics, celebrating pastoral life. Commissioned by Augustus, he spent eleven years composing his masterpiece, The Aeneid. Reclusive and unmarried, Virgil died of fever returning from Greece. Augustus defied Virgil’s deathbed request to burn the unfinished manuscript, publishing The Aeneid posthumously.