Virgil the Partisan: A Study in the re-integration of Classics [Paperback]

Since its first appearance in 2008, this book has changed the landscape of Virgilian studies. Analysing closely the logic and the literary genres of Virgil's three poems, it politely confronts the modern orthodoxy that Virgil signalled distaste for the methods of his ruler, Octavian-Augustus. It refreshes the study of Virgil's poetry by comparing it with the detail (normally neglected by scholars) of Rome's civil wars after Julius Caesar's death, when Octavian's survival looked highly unlikely. And it argues that Virgil wrote as a passionate - and brave - partisan of Octavian, who - like a good lawyer - confronted his patron's undeniable failings in order to defend.Acknowledgements and Prefatory Note Chronology PART I Studying Virgil and The established partisan: The Aeneid 1. Studying Virgil: several types of circularity - and an escape 2. The theft of Pietas 3. Recovering Sicily 4. The peopling of the underworld: Aeneid 6.608-27 5. Aeneas, sex and misery PART II Partisan in the making: The Eclogues and Georgics 6. The Eclogues 7. The Georgics: the fate of the Muses 8. Conclusion Bibliography IndexAnton Powell is the author of Athens and Sparta (1988, 2001) and the editor (with Stephen Hodkinson) of volumes generated by the International Sparta Seminar, which he founded. Editor of The Greek World (1995), he has also edited Roman Poetry and Propaganda in the Age of Augustus (1992) and, with Kathryn Welch, Julius Caesar as Artful Reporter (1998) and Sextus Pompeius (2002). Powell is Director of the University of Wales Institute of Classics and Ancient History. He founded the Classical Press of Wales, of which he is general editor. This is its 59th volume. He has twice been professeur invite at the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, in 2006 for Greek history and in 2008 for Latin literature.