ABSTRACT
Vergil was well read in Latin poetry, from Ennius to Catullus; of the Greeks, Theokritos and Apollonios of Rhodes seem to have been favourites of his, of course after the great masters, especially Homer. Vergil became one of the distinguished writers grouped around this patron whose very name has become a common noun, in Latin and in modern languages, for an encourager of literature or art. Vergil had early experimented with heroic poetry, though at the time nothing came of it and he suppressed anything he may have written. But a heroic poem, an epic on the grand scale, was badly wanted by Augustus and his supporters. Augustus was fully alive to the possibilities of propaganda, and missed no opportunity of getting himself well reputed among that wide public which, then as now, could be reached by the eloquent stating of a case, orally or on paper.
