This book locates the work of Virgil in the politics of his day. It examines closely the logic and the literary genres of Virgil’s poems. It rewrites, mainly from the Greek historians Appian and Dio, the political culture of a period frequently neglected or misunderstood, the decades following the death of Julius Caesar in 44 bc. And it argues that a guiding purpose in all three of Virgil’s works, Eclogues, Georgics and Aeneid, was to address and to palliate the unpopularity, the weaknesses, of Caesar’s heir, Octavian.
Combining the literary analysis of Latin poetry with the criticism of Greek and Roman political writers in prose, the author offers numerous insights into the poetic values and the architectural achievement of Virgil.
The author
Anton Powell is the author of Athens and Sparta (1988, 2001) and the editor (with Stephen Hodkinson) of volumes generated by the International Sparta Seminar, which he founded.
Editor of The Greek World (1995), he has also edited Roman Poetry and Propaganda in the Age of Augustus (1992) and, with Kathryn Welch, Julius Caesar as Artful Reporter (1998) and Sextus Pompeius (2002).
Powell is Director of the University of Wales Institute of Classics and Ancient History. He founded the Classical Press of Wales, of which he is general editor. Tis is its 59th volume.
He has twice been professeur invité at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, in 2006 for Greek history and in 2008 for Latin literature.