The Ideas That Formed the Constitution, Part 10: Virgil Alone

Engraving depicting Aeneas, a Trojan prince and son of the prince Anchises and the goddess Aphrodite, recounting the Trojan War to Dido, Queen of Carthage, Tunisia, circa 1200 B.C. The image, taken from a painting by Pierre-Narcisse Guerin (1774–1833), is a scene from Virgil's Aeneid. Kean Collection/Getty Images

Commentary

The previous (ninth) essay in this series identified three Roman poets quoted by participants in the constitutional debates of 1787–90—Ovid, Horace, and Virgil. The essay explained why Virgil was the most influential.