Virgil the Partisan: A Study in the Re-integration of Classics

Since its first appearance in 2008, this book has changed the landscape of Virgilian studies. Analysing closely the logic and the literary genres of Virgil’s three poems, it politely confronts the modern orthodoxy that Virgil signalled distaste for the methods of his ruler, Octavian-Augustus. It refreshes the study of Virgil’s poetry by comparing it with the detail (normally neglected by scholars) of Rome’s civil wars after Julius Caesar’s death, when Octavian’s survival looked highly unlikely. And it argues that Virgil wrote as a passionate - and brave - partisan of Octavian, who - like a good lawyer - confronted his patron’s undeniable failings in order to defend. Awarded in 2011 the prize of the Vergilian Society for ‘the book that makes the greatest contribution toward our understanding and appreciation of Virgil’.