Vergil Timeline
The Timeline:
70 BC-Publius
Vergilius Maro is born in Andes, a town in the Roman province of Gallia
Cisalpina (northern Italy), to a farming family of some means.
approx. 60-Vergil starts
his studies at Cremona.
approx. 58 or 57-Vergil
moves to Milan to study there.
approx. 53-Vergil moves to
Rome to continue his studies in rhetoric, philosophy, and law.
49-Julius Caesar
crosses the Rubicon, invading Italy.
He seizes control of Rome.
Soon after, Vergil moves to Naples and studies with Greek (perhaps
Epicurean) scholars there.
45-Vergil begins
work on the Eclogues (ah, the joys of cowherding!).
44-Julius Caesar
killed on March 15 (Beware the Ides of March!!), civil war breaks out as various factions try to
fill the power void. Octavian
eventually emerges as the big cheese.
42-Octavian begins seizing farmland throughout Italy so he can reward the
men who had fought on his side in the civil war. Vergil reportedly loses his family's farm, but regains it
with the help of some powerful friends.
37-Vergil completes
the Eclogues and publishes them.
approx. 36-Vergil begins
work on the Georgics at the behest of Maecenas, a powerful and
wealthy man who also happens to be the literary patron to many of Rome's most
famous poets.
29-having completed
the Georgics (ah, the joys of farming!), Vergil reads them aloud
to Octavian, who also happens to be one of Maecenas' closest friends.
29-Vergil begins
work on the Aeneid at Octavian's behest. As he works on it for the next 11
years, he reads portions to Octavian (soon to be known as 'Augustus' from 27 BC
on).
19 BC-Vergil dies at
Brundisium on September 21 as he makes his way back from Greece. Despite Vergil's deathbed request that
his complete, yet unpolished Aeneid be burned, Augustus has
Vergil's friends Varius and Tucca emend the text and publish it.
19 BC-now-generations
of students learn from and about Vergil's Aeneid, as it
fundamentally changes how the Romans (and therefore their cultural successors)
think about poetry.
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