The Aeneid Summary

Virgil's Epic of Rome's Founding

The Aeneid is Virgil's Roman epic (20 BCE) about Aeneas, a Trojan hero who escapes Troy's fall and journeys to Italy to found the civilization that becomes Rome.

After Troy falls, Aeneas carries his father on his back through the burning city. He sails the Mediterranean facing storms from Juno. In Carthage, he has an affair with Queen Dido. When Jupiter orders him to continue his mission, Dido kills herself on a funeral pyre. Aeneas visits the underworld, where his dead father shows him a vision of Rome's future glory.

The second half mirrors the Iliad. Aeneas arrives in Latium and is promised Lavinia's hand. Turnus raises an army against the Trojans. After fierce fighting, Aeneas kills Turnus, securing the Trojans' place in Italy. The poem is both a founding myth for Rome and a meditation on empire's terrible costs — Virgil never lets readers forget the suffering that destiny requires.

Book by book: the episodes most summaries skip

The Aeneid has twelve books. Books 1–6 are an Odyssey of wandering and Books 7–12 are an Iliad of war in Italy. The poem opens in the middle of the story, with Juno's storm wrecking the Trojan fleet off Africa. Aeneas then tells Dido what happened before.

Book 2, the fall of Troy. The Greek Sinon tricks the Trojans into taking in the wooden horse. Two sea serpents kill the priest Laocoön and his sons after he throws a spear at it. Aeneas loses his wife Creusa in the burning streets, and her ghost tells him a new kingdom waits in the west.
Book 3, the wanderings. The Trojans try to settle in Thrace, where the bleeding myrtle of the murdered Polydorus drives them away, and then on Crete, where a plague drives them off. On the Strophades islands the Harpy Celaeno curses them, saying they will be so hungry they eat their tables. At Buthrotum they find Andromache and the seer Helenus. Off Sicily they rescue Achaemenides, a crewman Odysseus left behind, and sight the blinded Cyclops Polyphemus. Anchises dies at Drepanum.
Book 5, the games. A year after Anchises' death the Trojans hold funeral games in Sicily. Trojan women, egged on by Juno, set fire to the ships, and some of the company stay behind. The helmsman Palinurus falls overboard on the way to Italy.
Book 6, the underworld. Guided by the Sibyl of Cumae and carrying the golden bough, Aeneas crosses the Styx. Dido's ghost turns away from him without a word. Anchises then shows him the future heroes of Rome, ending with a lament for the young Marcellus, Augustus's nephew and heir, who had died in 23 BCE.
Books 7–8, Italy. The Trojans fulfil Celaeno's prophecy harmlessly by eating the flat bread they were using as plates. Juno sends the Fury Allecto to drive Queen Amata and Turnus mad. Aeneas makes an alliance with the Arcadian king Evander, who lives on the future site of Rome. Venus gives her son a shield made by Vulcan that shows Roman history down to Augustus's victory at Actium.
Books 9–12, the war. Nisus and Euryalus die on a night raid. Turnus kills Evander's young son Pallas and takes his sword-belt. The warrior maiden Camilla falls fighting for the Latins. In the final scene Aeneas is about to spare the defeated Turnus when he sees Pallas's belt, and he kills him in a rage.

Greek roots of a Roman story

Aeneas was a Greek invention long before he was a Roman one. In Iliad 20, Poseidon rescues him from Achilles because he is fated to survive and to rule the Trojans in later generations. The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite tells how Aphrodite seduced his father Anchises on Mount Ida. Greek historians had already linked him to Italy by the fifth century BCE, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus later collected the competing accounts of his journey west. Virgil turned these traditions into a national epic for Augustus, who claimed descent from Aeneas's son Iulus. Virgil also uses the Roman names of the gods throughout: Juno rather than Hera, Venus rather than Aphrodite. The Greek and Roman gods are not perfectly interchangeable, and Virgil's Juno carries a specifically Roman grudge, since Carthage is her favourite city.

How the poem ends, and why it matters

Virgil worked on the poem for about the last ten years of his life and died in 19 BCE with it unrevised. The ancient biographical tradition says he asked for the manuscript to be burned and that Augustus overruled him. Some lines are left half-finished. The abrupt last scene, in which Turnus's soul flees "with a groan, resentful, to the shades", is the most argued-over moment in Latin literature. Some readers see it as just vengeance for Pallas. Others see it as Aeneas failing the ideal his father set out in Book 6, which is to spare the defeated and overcome the proud. Before that, in Book 12, Juno finally makes peace with Jupiter, on condition that the Latins keep their name, language and dress and the Trojans are absorbed into them. That is Virgil's explanation of why Romans were not called Trojans.

Ancient sources

Virgil, Aeneid: the twelve-book epic itself, composed in the 20s BCE and published after the poet's death in 19 BCE.
Homer, Iliad 20: Poseidon saves Aeneas from Achilles and foretells that he and his descendants will rule the Trojans.
Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite: the story of Aphrodite and Anchises and the prophecy of Aeneas's birth.
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, Book 1: collects Greek and Roman accounts of Aeneas's voyage and arrival in Latium.
Ovid, Metamorphoses 13–14: retells Aeneas's journey briefly, ending with his deification.

Frequently asked questions

Is the Aeneid Greek or Roman mythology?

It is a Roman poem written in Latin, but it takes its characters, gods and many episodes from Greek myth, especially Homer. Aeneas himself is a Trojan hero from the Trojan War tradition.

Does Aeneas found Rome?

No. He founds the city of Lavinium. His son Ascanius founds Alba Longa, and Rome itself is founded generations later by Romulus, a descendant of Aeneas.

Why does Dido curse Aeneas?

Before she dies, Dido prays for eternal hostility between her people and his. Virgil presents this as the mythical origin of the Punic Wars between Carthage and Rome.

Was the Aeneid finished?

Not fully. Virgil died before revising it, and the poem contains about fifty-eight incomplete lines. It was published on Augustus's orders.