Virgil

Publius Vergilius Maro was born on 15 October 70 BC and composed three works that became the foundation of Latin literature: the Eclogues, the Georgics, and the Aeneid. Already a classic in his own lifetime, he quickly replaced earlier poets like Ennius as the standard school text and held that position through late antiquity, the Middle Ages, and into modernity. Chaucer placed him on a bright tin-plated pillar in The House of Fame; Dante cast him as his guide through Hell and Purgatory in the Divine Comedy, crediting Virgil with the "beautiful style that has done honour to me". When T. S. Eli…