Virgil

Hello! My name is Virgil, and I was a poet in ancient Rome. I was born on October 15th, in the year 70 BCE, in a peaceful village in the countryside of what is now Italy. I loved growing up surrounded by green fields, buzzing bees, and tall trees. I spent my days watching farmers work and shepherds guide their flocks. These beautiful sights made me want to write about them.

When I grew up, I went to big cities like Rome to study. I learned about many things, but what I loved most was writing poetry. I wanted to use my words to paint pictures of the beautiful world I knew. My first famous poems were called the Eclogues, which I wrote around the year 39 BCE. They were all about the simple, happy lives of shepherds in the countryside. People in the busy city of Rome loved reading them because it felt like taking a little trip to a quiet, sunny field.

One day, the most powerful man in Rome, the Emperor Augustus, asked me to do a very important job. He wanted me to write a giant, exciting poem about the beginning of Rome. He hoped it would make everyone feel proud to be Roman. So, starting around 29 BCE, I began writing my biggest story ever, called the Aeneid. It's an adventure story about a brave hero named Aeneas who escapes a war and travels across the sea to build a new home, which would one day become Rome. I worked on it for over ten years.

I traveled to Greece to make my story even better, but I became sick on the journey home. I never got to finish the Aeneid exactly the way I wanted. I lived to be 50 years old, passing away in the year 19 BCE. Even though I was gone, my friends published my story so everyone could read it. Today, the Aeneid is one of the most famous poems in the world, and students everywhere still read about the adventures of Aeneas. My words have lived on for thousands of years, sharing the stories of heroes and the beauty of nature with everyone.