{
  "id": "aeneid",
  "type": "entity",
  "name": "Aeneid (Virgil)",
  "summary": "Virgil's Latin epic in twelve books on Aeneas's flight from Troy, his wanderings and his war in Italy, written under Augustus, whom it names in the underworld and at Actium. It is the fullest witness for the Roman Penates, Janus's Gates of War, Faunus's oracle and Bellona, and for Jupiter's promise of \"empire without end\". Read here in T. C. Williams's 1910 translation, cited by book and Latin line.",
  "locale": "en",
  "tags": [
    "roman",
    "texts",
    "virgil",
    "latin-poetry",
    "primary-sources"
  ],
  "relations": [
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "metamorphoses"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "aeneas"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "jupiter"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "juno"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "venus"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "janus"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "faunus"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "penates"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "trojan-war"
    }
  ],
  "questions": [
    "What is the Aeneid about?",
    "How many books does the Aeneid have?",
    "Who wrote the Aeneid and when?",
    "How does the Aeneid end?",
    "Which Roman gods appear in the Aeneid?",
    "How should the Aeneid be cited?"
  ],
  "claims": [
    {
      "id": "c1",
      "text": "The proem: \"Arms and the man I sing, who first made way, predestined exile, from the Trojan shore to Italy\" — suffering \"to satisfy stern Juno's sleepless wrath\" until he could found the city and bring his gods to Latium, \"whence arose the Latin race, old Alba's reverend lords, and from her hills wide-walled, imperial Rome\" (Aen. 1.1).",
      "sources": [
        "virgil-aeneid"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.95
    },
    {
      "id": "c2",
      "text": "Twelve books: Books 2–3 are Aeneas's own narrative at Dido's request — \"begin the tale … begin and tell the perfidy of Greece, thy people's fall, and all thy wanderings\" (Aen. 1.723) — and the poem ends in Book 12 with Turnus's death, \"the vital breath with moan of wrath to darkness fled away\" (Aen. 12.919).",
      "sources": [
        "virgil-aeneid"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.93
    },
    {
      "id": "c3",
      "text": "The Italian half opens with a second proem: \"Events of grander march impel my song, and loftier task I try\" (Aen. 7.37), followed by Latinus's genealogy from Faunus and Saturn.",
      "sources": [
        "virgil-aeneid"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.92
    },
    {
      "id": "c4",
      "text": "It is an Augustan poem by its own text: Anchises points out \"Augustus Caesar, kindred unto Jove. He brings a golden age\" (Aen. 6.756), and on the shield \"Caesar Augustus led Italia's sons\" at Actium (Aen. 8.671). Jupiter's promise to Venus of \"empire without end\" for the Romans (Aen. 1.272) is the poem's political charter.",
      "sources": [
        "virgil-aeneid"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.93
    },
    {
      "id": "c5",
      "text": "The specifically Roman gods live in this poem: the Penates who speak on Crete (Aen. 3.147), Janus and the Gates of War (Aen. 7.601), the oracle of Faunus (Aen. 7.81), Bellona with her scourge (Aen. 8.671), and the Sun invoked as oath-witness (Aen. 12.175).",
      "sources": [
        "virgil-aeneid"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.92
    },
    {
      "id": "c6",
      "text": "Citation in this corpus follows the Perseus card numbers of the Latin text — \"Aen. book.line\" where the line is the Latin line that opens the card (e.g. Aen. 7.601 for the Gates of War) — not the English line numbers of Williams's translation.",
      "sources": [
        "virgil-aeneid"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    }
  ],
  "takeaways": [
    "Two halves with two proems (Aen. 1.1, 7.37): wanderings, then war in Italy.",
    "The poem dates itself by naming Augustus as the living fulfilment of Jupiter's promise (Aen. 1.272, 6.756, 8.671).",
    "For Roman (as opposed to Latinised Greek) gods, the Aeneid is the richest text in this corpus."
  ],
  "faqs": [
    {
      "q": "What is the Aeneid about?",
      "claim": "c1"
    },
    {
      "q": "How does the Aeneid end?",
      "claim": "c2"
    },
    {
      "q": "Who wrote the Aeneid and when?",
      "claim": "c4"
    },
    {
      "q": "Which Roman gods appear in the Aeneid?",
      "claim": "c5"
    },
    {
      "q": "How should the Aeneid be cited?",
      "claim": "c6"
    }
  ],
  "evidence_tier": "primary",
  "evidence": {
    "level": "theoretical",
    "source_types": [
      "paper"
    ]
  },
  "moat_flag": false,
  "winning_edge": "Describes the work from its own lines — proems, ending, Augustus, the Roman gods it alone narrates — and fixes the citation convention for quoting it.",
  "confidence": 0.92,
  "last_verified": "2026-09-03",
  "media": [],
  "x": {
    "myth": {
      "pantheon": "roman",
      "kind": "text",
      "group": "other",
      "wikidata": "Q60220"
    }
  },
  "canonical_url": "https://mythosdata.dev/k/aeneid",
  "api_url": "https://mythosdata.dev/api/k/aeneid.json",
  "jsonld": {
    "@context": "https://schema.org",
    "name": "Aeneid (Virgil)",
    "description": "Virgil's Latin epic in twelve books on Aeneas's flight from Troy, his wanderings and his war in Italy, written under Augustus, whom it names in the underworld and at Actium. It is the fullest witness for the Roman Penates, Janus's Gates of War, Faunus's oracle and Bellona, and for Jupiter's promise of \"empire without end\". Read here in T. C. Williams's 1910 translation, cited by book and Latin line.",
    "url": "https://mythosdata.dev/k/aeneid",
    "license": "https://spdx.org/licenses/CC-BY-4.0.html",
    "dateModified": "2026-09-03",
    "citation": [
      {
        "@type": "CreativeWork",
        "name": "Virgil, Aeneid — tr. Theodore C. Williams (1910), Perseus TEI edition",
        "url": "https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-latinLit/blob/master/data/phi0690/phi003/phi0690.phi003.perseus-eng2.xml"
      }
    ],
    "@type": "Article",
    "headline": "Aeneid (Virgil)"
  }
}