Virgil's masterpiece, one of the greatest works in Western literature, was written in Latin, between 29 and 19 BCE, recalling events after the Fall of Troy over 1200 years before, as told in the famous Homeric epics of Greek literature the Iliad and the Odyssey. The great adventures of Aeneas' flight from Troy and the prophesy of his founding of a great city, linked Roman dynasty to the legends of a heroic past, bringing myth and history to bear in the politics of the Roman Empire.
