Vergil: A Biography

This biography invites listeners into the world of the poet born on a quiet Mantuan plain in 70 B.C., tracing the modest origins that shaped his gaze on Rome’s restless empire. Drawing on the often‑overlooked verses of the Appendix Vergiliana, the author reconstructs youthful experiments, school lessons, and military service, offering a vivid picture of a farmer’s son who turned the rhythms of countryside life into the foundations of great epic.

The narrative stays clear of dense literary theory, instead letting the poet’s own early works reveal how a decade of apprenticeship evolved into the mature artistry of his later masterpieces. By focusing on the concrete details of his daily labor, friendships, and aspirations, the listener gains a fresh sense of how the personal and the political intertwined in the making of the Georgics and the early steps toward the Aeneid.