Vergil
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- birth (70 BC)
- Publius Vergilius Maro was born in the village of Andes, near Mantua, in 70 B.C.E.
- his father
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Vergil's father was a yeoman farmer who married his employer's daughter
He was probably also a manufacturer of pottery and was or became a prosperous owner of land
he probably worked on his father's farm - education
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When he was about ten years old, he went to school at Cremona, continuing his studies a few years later at Milan before going to Rome when he was seventeen.
At Rome, Vergil continued his studies, concentrating on rhetoric and philosophy, as well as law. He spoke in the courts only once, and did so very poorly. - the Roman occupation
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In 49 B.C.E., Julius Caesar crossed the River Rubicon and occupied Rome
Vergil might have been conscripted to serve in Caesar's army for a year, but it is just as likely that his poor health prevented him from serving at all. - Campania
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Soon, Vergil left Rome and settled in Campania at the philosophical school known as "The Garden"
led a quiet life at Campania while civil war was raging in the Roman Empire - return to rome
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Octavian, Julius Caesar's great-nephew and adopted son, began seizing land and farms in Italy, among them Vergil's estate, to resettle war veterans.
Unlike most of the dispossessed farmers, however, Vergil was able to get his land back, probably with the help of influential friends, such as Alfenus Varus, Pollio, and Cornelius Gallus. - Eclogues
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ten selections of poetry, on cowherding of all things
propelled Vergil to great fame...performed in theater
He gained favor with Octavian, who had taken control of the Roman world and Maecenas - Georgics
- a masterpiece on agriculture, written at the command of and dedicated to Maecenas
- Aeneid
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an epic poem for Octavian
Vergil worked on the Aeneidfor eleven years, completing the work but not editing it, when he took a trip to Greece to see the places he was writing about in his work.
Vergil had ordered that the Aeneid be burned upon his death, but Augustus intervened and saved the work, leaving it to old friends to edit it - death (19 BC)
- However, he soon fell deathly ill, returned to Italy, died at Brundisium in 19 B.C.E., and was buried in Naples, having left the Aeneid incomplete