Virgil facts for kids

Mosaic portrait of Virgil, 3rd-century AD.

Virgil, Publius Vergilius Maro, or Vergil, (15 October 70 BC – 21 September 19 BC) was a poet in the Latin language. His poems are about gods and their mythology. Virgil's most famous epic poem is called the Aeneid.

Life

Tradition is that Virgil was born in the village of Andes, near Mantua in Cisalpine Gaul. Scholars looking at the way he used words think that he may have Etruscan, Umbrian or even a Celtic background. Study of his name has led to beliefs that his family may have been earlier Roman settlers. These modern beliefs are not supported by evidence from his own writings or from writers of his biographies. Some scholars have noted that his nickname, MARO, is an anagram of the two main themes in the Aeneid: AMOR (love) and ROMA (Rome).

Images for kids

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  Page from the beginning of the Eclogues in the 5th-century Vergilius Romanus

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  Late 17th-century illustration of a passage from the Georgics by Jerzy Siemiginowski-Eleuter

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  A 1st-century terracotta expressing the pietas of Aeneas, who carries his aged father and leads his young son

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  Virgil Reading the Aeneid to Augustus, Octavia, and Livia by Jean-Baptiste Wicar, Art Institute of Chicago

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  A 5th-century portrait of Virgil from the Vergilius Romanus

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  The verse inscription at Virgil's tomb was supposedly composed by the poet himself: Mantua me genuit, Calabri rapuere, tenet nunc Parthenope. Cecini pascua, rura, duces. ("Mantua gave me life, the Calabrians took it away, Naples holds me now; I sang of pastures, farms, and commanders" [transl. Bernard Knox])

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  Tomb of Virgil in Naples, Italy