The Aeneid (Unabridged)

The Aeneid by Virgil - is a Latin epic poem that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who fled the fall of Troy and travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. Written by the Roman poet Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, the Aeneid comprises 9,896 lines in dactylic hexameter. The first six of the poem's twelve books tell the story of Aeneas' wanderings from Troy to Italy, and the poem's second half tells of the Trojans' ultimately victorious war upon the Latins, under whose name Aeneas and his Trojan followers are destined to be subsumed.

Story
The Aeneid can be divided into halves based on the disparate subject matter of Books 1-6 (Aeneas' journey to Latium in Italy), commonly associated with Homer's The Odyssey and Books 7-12 (the war in Latium), mirroring The Iliad. These two halves are commonly regarded as reflecting Virgil's ambition to rival Homer by treating both the Odyssey's wandering theme and the Iliad's warfare themes. This is, however, a rough correspondence, the limitations of which should be borne in mind.

Although the definitive story of Aeneas escaping the fallen Troy and finding a new home in Italy, thus eventually becoming the ancestor of the Romans, was codified by Virgil, the myth of Aeneas' post-Troy adventures predates him by centuries. As Greek settlements began to expand starting in the sixth century BC, Greek colonists would often try to connect their new homes, and the native people they found there, to their pre-existing mythology; the Odyssey containing Odysseus's travels in many far away lands already provided such a link. Aeneas's story reflects not just Roman, but rather a combination of various Greek, Etruscan, Latin and Roman elements. Troy provided for a very suitable narrative for the Greek colonists in Magna Graecia and Sicily who wished to link their new homelands with themselves, and the Etruscans, who would have adopted the story of Aeneas in Italy first, and quickly became associated with him. Greek vases as early as the sixth century BC provide evidence for these early Greek mythological accounts of Aeneas founding a new home in Etruria predating Virgil by a wide margin, and he was known to have been worshipped in Lavinium, the city he founded.

Book 1: Storm and refuge
Book 2: Trojan Horse and sack of Troy
Book 3: Wanderings
Book 4: Fate of Queen Dido
Book 5: Sicily
Book 6: Underworld
Book 7: Arrival in Latium and outbreak of war
Book 8: Visit to Pallanteum, site of future Rome
Book 9: Turnus' siege of Trojan camp
Book 10: First battle
Book 11: Armistice and battle with Camilla
Book 12: Final battle and duel of Aeneas and Turnus