Virgil Writes the Aeneid

Virgil spent the last decade of his life writing the Aeneid, the founding myth of Rome tracing the empire's origins to the Trojan hero Aeneas. He completed it around 19 BCE and reportedly asked for it to be burned on his deathbed; Augustus refused. Virgil's earlier 'Fourth Eclogue,' which describes a miraculous child who would usher in a golden age, fascinated medieval Christians who saw in it an unconscious prophecy of Christ.