i don't think anybody else has ever read this book without first being forced to learn latin. yet it is worth reading in translation .the setting, sicily, libya, italy some twenty-five hundred years ago comes alive as communities of farmers and small towns united by person-sized culture. the land, the government, the value of father-son, husband-wife bonds, sports, hand-to hand combat, all apects of life are within the reach of of the person and the people he or she knows.
the author chooses the adventures of aeneas and his twenty boats of trojans escaping the greeks's destruction of their city over seven years of travail . the end of the story , aeneas and his youngest and bravest battling the latins on the tiber to a truce,
gets glorified as the founding of the never-ending roman empire, yet all aeneas gets is the daughter of the king of latium in marriage and land for his warriors to cultivate and inhabit. the trojan language gets dumped, and all that is left of aeneas is a story, yet what a story.
the escapees from troy battle storms, are skilled enough to build towns and new ships, and more or less have the patience to
keep on moving till they find a really nice location for the end of the journey. they find countrymen on the way, already settled, and other more or less hospitable towns. aeneas courts and dumps a wealthy widow ( dido, who commits suicide ), a lot of his
people settle down along the way.
sports, fair and unfair, get a lot of attention. war is a routine affair, with both tragedy and trophies, and aeneas is good at it.philosophising stands out as something you pay for dearly, with sacrifices of a lot a livestock at altars with oracles. a modern reader might hahe a problem with the contant reference to deities. they either appear as interested in whether aeneas will or will not make it to the tiber to sow his seed for rome, or take the credit when some person in deed or passion goes past the ordinary.they also travel in sky or sea with smoke and fire and a lot of fuss.
i really enjoyed the book, in a verse translation, because vergil did bring to life very real people whose life is memorable and engrossing. the chapters each would make for an exciting evening of drama as read to a group untouched by television or even literacy. remember, in ancient rome , there were manuscripts, and news was announced on the streetcorner, and literature was for those who could afford a reader and a big living room. go ahead, take a chance. read the aeneid. you do not have to learn latin for this privilege.