Editing Virgil (section)

===Poetic career===

The biographical tradition asserts that Virgil began the hexameter ''[[Eclogues]]'' (or ''Bucolics'') in 42 BC and it is thought that the collection was published around 39–38 BC, although this is controversial.<ref name="Fowler, pg.1603" />{{Rp|1602}} After defeating the army led by the [[Assassination of Julius Caesar|assassins]] of [[Julius Caesar]] in the [[Battle of Philippi]] (42 BC), [[Octavian]] tried to pay off his veterans with land expropriated from towns in northern Italy, which—according to tradition—included an estate near Mantua belonging to Virgil. The loss of Virgil's family farm and the attempt through poetic petitions to regain his property have traditionally been seen as his motives in the composition of the ''Eclogues''. This is now thought to be an unsupported inference from interpretations of the ''Eclogues''. In ''Eclogues'' 1 and 9, Virgil indeed dramatizes the contrasting feelings caused by the brutality of the land expropriations through pastoral idiom but offers no indisputable evidence of the supposed biographic incident.

Sometime after the publication of the ''Eclogues'' (probably before 37 BC),<ref name="Fowler, pg.1603"/>{{Rp|1603}} Virgil became part of the circle of [[Maecenas]], Octavian's capable ''agent d'affaires'' who sought to counter sympathy for Antony among the leading families by rallying Roman literary figures to Octavian's side. Virgil came to know many of the other leading literary figures of the time, including [[Horace]], in whose poetry he is often mentioned,<ref>[[Horace]], ''[[Satires (Horace)|Satires]]'' 1.5, 1.6; Horace, [[Odes (Horace)|''Odes'']] 1.3</ref> and [[Varius Rufus]], who later helped finish the ''Aeneid''.

At Maecenas's insistence (according to the tradition) Virgil spent the ensuing years (perhaps 37–29 BC) on the long [[dactylic hexameter]] poem called the ''[[Georgics]]'' (from Greek, "On Working the Earth"), which he dedicated to Maecenas.

Virgil worked on the ''Aeneid'' during the last eleven years of his life (29–19 BC), commissioned, according to [[Propertius]], by [[Augustus]].<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Avery|first1=W. T.|year=1957|title=Augustus and the "Aeneid"|journal=The Classical Journal|volume=52|issue=5|pages=225–29}}</ref> According to the tradition, Virgil traveled to the [[senatorial province]] of [[Achaea (Roman province)|Achaea]] in Greece in about 19 BC to revise the ''Aeneid''. After meeting Augustus in Athens and deciding to return home, Virgil caught a fever while visiting a town near [[Megara]]. After crossing to Italy by ship, weakened with disease, Virgil died in [[Apulia]] on 21 September 19 BC. Augustus ordered Virgil's literary executors, [[Lucius Varius Rufus]] and [[Plotius Tucca]], to disregard Virgil's own wish [[Book burning#Posthumous destruction of works|that the poem be burned]], instead ordering it to be published with as few editorial changes as possible.<ref>{{cite EB1911|wstitle=Virgil|volume=28|pages=111–116|last1=Sellar|first1=William Young |author-link1=William Young Sellar |last2=Glover|first2=Terrot Reaveley|author2-link=Terrot Reaveley Glover|last3=Bryant|first3=Margaret}}</ref>{{rp|112}}

==== Burial and tomb ====
[[File:Parco della Grotta di Posillipo3.jpg|alt=Tomb of Virgil in Naples, Italy|thumb|upright=1.3|[[Virgil's tomb|Tomb of Virgil]] in Naples, Italy]]

After his death at [[Brundisium]] according to Donatus,{{sfn|Brummer|1912|p=8}} or at [[Taranto]] according to some late manuscripts of Servius,{{sfn|Brummer|1912|p=72}} Virgil's remains were transported to [[Naples]], where his tomb was engraved with an epitaph that he himself composed: ''{{lang|la|Mantua me genuit; Calabri rapuere; tenet nunc Parthenope. Cecini pascua, rura, duces}}'';{{sfn|Brummer|1912|p=8}}{{sfn|Brummer|1912|p=72}} "[[Mantua]] gave me life, the [[Salento|Calabrians]] took it away, Naples holds me now; I sang of pastures, farms, and commanders." (transl. [[Bernard Knox]]) [[Martial]] reports that [[Silius Italicus]] annexed the site to his estate (11.48, 11.50), and [[Pliny the Younger]] says that Silius "would visit Virgil's tomb as if it were a temple" (''Epistulae'' 3.7.8).<ref name="Berenbeim_Tomb">{{cite encyclopedia |last=Berenbeim |first=Jessica |title=Virgil, tomb of |encyclopedia=The Virgil Encyclopedia |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |year=2014 |page=1361 |doi=10.1002/9781118351352.wbve2205|isbn=978-1-4051-5498-7 }}</ref>

[[File:Parco della Grotta di Posillipo5 (crop).jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|Modern bust of Virgil at the entrance to his crypt in [[Naples]]]]

The structure known as [[Virgil's tomb]] is found at the entrance of an ancient Roman tunnel ({{lang|it|grotta vecchia}}) in [[Piedigrotta]], a district {{cvt|3|km|order=flip}} from the centre of [[Naples]], near the [[Mergellina]] harbour, on the road heading north along the coast to [[Pozzuoli]]. While Virgil was already the object of literary admiration and veneration before his death, in the Middle Ages his name became associated with miraculous powers, and for a couple of centuries his tomb was the destination of [[pilgrimage]]s and veneration.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_K0UJAAAAIAAJ| title=The Book of Days | publisher=W and R Chambers | author=Chambers, Robert | year=1832 | location=London | pages=366}}</ref> Through the nineteenth century, the supposed tomb regularly attracted travellers on the [[Grand Tour]], and it still draws visitors today.<ref name="Berenbeim_Tomb"/>