photo of arena TROY
Virgil and Rome Bibliography

Aelius Donatus. Life of Virgil.  Appendix I, in Camps, An Introduction to Virgil's Aeneid. Oxford, 1969: 115-120.

Adkins, Lesley and Roy A. Adkins. Dictionary of Roman Religion.  New York: Facts on File, Inc., 1996.

Alvis, John. Divine Purpose and Heroic Response in Homer and Virgil: The Political Plan of Zeus. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1995.

Apollonius of Rhodes. The Voyage of Argo. 1959. Trans. and with an Intro. by E. V. Rieu. Second Edition. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1971.

Armstrong, A. H. Ed. Classical Mediterranean Spirituality: Egyptian, Greek, Roman. New York, 1986.

Babel, R. J. "Vergil, Tops, and the Stoic View of Fate," CJ 77 (1981-2): 27-31.

Bailey, Cyril. Religion in Virgil. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1935. Rpt. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1969. [J. A. Richards says this is a cautious assessment; on religious practices in the Aeneid; detailed analysis of V's use of various god terms and analysis of which are Italian, which Greek, which a blend; a section on emperor worship easy in a polytheistic state; section on fate and the gods; stoic world soul not the same as Jupiter]

Bernard, John D., Ed. Virgil at 2000: Commemorative Essays on the Poet and His Influence. New York: AMS Press, 1986. [essays on Virgil and essays on his later influences; useful bibliography]

Beye, Charles Rowan. Ancient epic poetry: Homer, Apollonius, Virgil. Revised version of The Iliad, The Odyssey, and the Epic Tradition, 1966. Ithaca:  Cornell University Press, 1993.

Bloom, Harold, Ed. Virgil: Modern Critical Views. Intro. by Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1986. [essays by Curtius, Snell, Parry, Greene, Quinn, Stewart, Hunt, Johnson, Putnam, Williams & Gransden]

Bowie, A. M. "The Death of Priam: Allegory and History in the Aeneid." Classical Quarterly 1990, Vol. 40 No.2: 470-481. [Virgil first to make Priam's death the climax of the fall of Troy; compared to historical events and V's allegory]

Bowra, C. M. From Virgil to Milton. 1945. Rpt. London: MacMillan, 1967.

BoyancJ, Paul. La RJligion de Virgile. Paris, 1963.

Brooks, Robert A. "Discolor Aura: Reflections on the Golden Bough." AJPh 1953, Vol. 74: 260-80. Rpt. in Commager, S. Ed. Virgil: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1966.

Cairns, Francis. Virgil's Augustan Epic. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1989. [focuses on issues of divine and human kingship]

Camps, W. A. An Introduction to Virgil's "Aeneid." Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1969. [includes chapters on Virgil's use of Homeric and other sources, especially. underworld and Odysseus' journey; well spoken of in other peoples'  work; includes ancient lives of Virgil]

Clark, Raymond J. Catabasis: Vergil and the Wisdom Tradition. Amsterdam: B. R. Gráner, 1979. [underworld journeys from Near East through Odyssey 11 and on to classical Rome]

Coleman, Robert. "The Gods in the Aeneid." 1982. In Virgil. Eds. Ian McAuslan and Peter Walcot. Greece and Rome Studies. Oxford University Press on behalf of The Classical Association, 1990: 39-64. [An excellent, relevant article on the gods and causation in Virgil]

Commager, Steele, Ed. Virgil: A Collection of Critical Essays. Twentieth Century Views. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966.[essays by Snell, Perret, R. W. B. Lewis, Bowra, C. S. Lewis, Haecker, Clausen, Otiis, Parry, Knox, Brooks, P`schl]

Cornell, T. J. The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000-264 BC). Routledge History of the Ancient World. London: Routledge, 1995.  [includes material on the story of Aeneas; much about the historical theories and methods of analysis]

Curtius, E. R. "Virgil in European Literature." Essays on European Literature. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973. Rpt. in Virgil: Modern Critical Views. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York, Chelsea House Publishers, 1986: 9-20.

Di Cesare, Mario A. The Altar and the City. New York: Columbia University Press, 1974.

Feder, Lilian. "Virgil's Tragic Theme." Classical Journal 1954, Vol. 49: 197-208.

Feeney, D. C. The Gods in Epic: Poets and Critics of the Classical Tradition. Clarendon Paperbacks. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991. First paperback, 1993.

Galensky, Karl. Augustan Culture: An Interpretive Introduction. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996.

Grandazzi, Alexandre. The Foundation of Rome. Myth and History. Translated from French [1991] by Jane Marie Todd. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1997.

Gransden, K. W. "War and Peace." Virgil's Iliad: An Essay on Epic Narrative. Cambridge University Press, 1984. Rpt. in Bloom, 1987: 127-147.

-------. Virgil's "Iliad": An Essay on Epic Narrative. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1984. [mostly about last 6 books of Aeneid; much on Homer's influence; focus on Achilles, Patroclus and Hector in Homer]

-------. "The Fall of Troy," Greece & Rome 32.1 (April 1985): 60-72. Rpt. in McAuslan & Walcott, Eds. Virgil: 121-133.  [on fragments of epic cycles on the fall of Troy; Little Iliad, etc.; focuses on Virgil]

--------. Virgil: The Aeneid. Landmarks of World Literature.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

Grant, Michael. The World of Rome. Cleveland: The World Publishing Co., 1960.

Greene, Thomas M. "Virgil's Style." In The Descent from Heaven: A Study in Epic Continuity. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1963. Rpt. in Bloom, 1987: 31-55.

Hardie, Philip R. Virgil's Aeneid: Cosmos and  Imperium. Oxford, 1986.

Harrison, S. J., Ed. Oxford Readings in Vergil's AENEID. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990. [essays on Dido, Aeneas, history, empire, etc.; excellent selection]

--------. "Some Views of the Aeneid in the Twentieth Century." In Harrison, S. J. Ed.  Oxford Readings in Vergil's AENEID.  Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990: 1-20. [great overview of 20th c. interpretations of Virgil as pro- and anti-empire]

Heinze, R. Vergils epische Technik. Stuttgart, 1914. Translated as Virgil's Epic Technique. Trans. Hazel and David Harvey and Fred Robertson; preface by Antonie Wlosok. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. [according to Robert Coleman, "The view that the gods of the Aeneid were allegorical figures of psychological phenomena, symbols that the reader decodes as he goes along, was first and most influentially elaborated by R. Heinze, pp. 291-318]

Horsfall, N.M. "Non Viribus Aequis: Some Problems in Virgil's Battle-Scenes", G&R, NS 34. (1987): 48-55 [on responsibility]

Hunt, J. William. Forms of Glory: Structure and Sense in Virgil's "Aeneid" Carbondale, Ill.: Southern Illinois Press, 1973.

Inwood, Brad. Ethics and Human Action in Early Stoicism. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985. [on later theories of action in Virgil and the middle ages; full treatment of the Stoic theory of "impulses", especially: 42-66]

Johnson, W. R. Darkness Visible: A Study of Vergil's Aeneid.  Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976.  [a section, "Depths and Surfaces," rpt. in Bloom, 1987: 75-103; on light being used to illuminate darkness, art to illuminate chaos]

Kennedy, George A. The Latin Iliad: Introduction, Text, Translation and Notes. 1998. 75pp. [BMR speaks highly of it as a text for students, with an attractive translation and notes suitable for students.]

Knight, W. F. Jackson. Roman Vergil. London: Faber and Faber Ltd., 1944.

-----. "Introduction" to Virgil: The Aeneid. Translated by W. F. Jackson Knight. 1956. 1958, Rpt. with Revisions. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd., 1964: 11-24.

Knox, Bernard M. W. "The Serpent and the Flame: The Imagery of the Second Book of the Aeneid."  AJPh 1950, Vol. 71: 379-400.  Rpt. in Commager, 1966: 124-142.

Livy. History. [According to Robert Coleman, the introduction is the locus classicus for the relations of gods/men in Augustan times.]

Long, A. A. Hellenistic Philosophy: Stoics, Epicureans, Sceptics. 1974. Second Edition, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986. [Long seems to be the most referred to author currently on stoicism]

Mandelbaum, Allen, Trans. The Aeneid of Virgil. 1961. Rpt. New York: 5th Bantam paperback, 1978. [useful glossary of Latin names; probably the best current translation]

Marshall, Peter K. Servius and Commentary on Virgil. Occasional Papers, No. 5, Center for Medieval & Renaissance Studies, Binghamton, New York. Asheville, North Carolina: Pegasus Press, 1997.

Martindale, Charles, Ed. The Cambridge Companion to Virgil. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Mattingly, Harold. Roman Imperial Civilization. 1957. Rpt. New York: Norton, 1971.

McAuslan, Ian & Peter Walcot, Eds. Virgil. Greece and Rome Studies. Oxford: Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Classical Association, 1990.[good selection of essays] 

Momigliano, A. "Religion in Athens, Rome and Jerusalem in the first century B.C.", ASNP 3.14 (1984): 873-92.

Ogilvie, R. M. The Romans and their Gods In the Age of Augustus. Ancient Culture and Society Series. Gen. Ed. M. I. Finley. New York: W. W. Norton. 1969.

Otis, Brooks. Virgil: A Study in Civilized Poetry. Oxford: at the Clarendon Press, 1964. Rpt. 1967.

Parry, Adam. "The Two Voices of Virgil's Aeneid." In Bloom, 1987. Rpt. from Arion 2, no. 4 (winter) (1963). 57-73.

Plessis, Frederic, Ed.. Ilias Latina. Italici Ilias Latina. Paris, 1885.

Poschl, Viktor. The Art of Vergil: Image and Symbol in the Aeneid. Trans. Gerda Seligson. 1962. Second Printing, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. 1966.

Prescott, Henry W. The Development of Virgil's Art. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1927.

Putnam, Michael C. J. The Poetry of the Aeneid: Four Studies in Imaginative Unity and Design. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard U. P., 1966.

Quinn, Kenneth. Virgil's "Aeneid": A Critical Description.  Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1968.

Reid, Patrick V. Moses's Staff and Aeneas's Shield: The Way of the Torah Versus Classical Heroism. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, Inc., 2005.

Richmond, J. A.  "Symbolism in Virgil: Skeleton Key or Will-o'-the-Wisp?" 1976.  Rpt. in McAuslan, Ian & Peter Walcot, Eds. Virgil, 1990, 24-38. 

Seneca. The Stoic Philosophy of Seneca. Essays and Letters Translated and with an Introduction by Moses Hadas. New York: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1958.

Schleiner, W. "Aeneas' flight from Troy." Comp. Lit. Spring 1975, Vol. 27: 97-112.

Segal, C. P. "'Aeternum Per Saecula Nomen,’ The Golden Bough and the Tragedy of History." Part I. Arion 1965, Vol. 4: 617-657; Part II. Arion 1966 Vol. 5: 34-72.

Starr, Chester. Civilization and the Caesars: The Intellectual Revolution in the Roman Empire. 1954. Rpt. New York: W. W. Norton. 1965.

Statius. With an English Translation by J. H. Mozley, M.A. In two volumes. II. Thebaid V-XII and Achilleid. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, Massachusetts.  Harvard University Press, 1961.

Stewart, Douglas J. "Morality, Mortality, and the Public Life: Aeneas the Politician." Antioch Review 1973, Vol. 32 No. 4: 649-665. Rpt. as "Aeneas the Politician" in Bloom, 1986: 103-118.

Thornton, Agathe. The Living Universe: Gods and Men in Virgil's Aeneid. Lugduni Batavorum: Brill, 1976.

Veyne, Paul, Editor.  A History of Private Life: I. From Pagan Rome to Byzantium. Trans. Arthur Goldhammer. Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard Univ. Press, 1987.

Veyne, Paul. "The Roman Empire." in Paul Veyne, Editor, A History of Private Life: I. From Pagan Rome to Byzantium. Ed. Paul Veyne. Trans. Arthur Goldhammer. Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard Univ. Press, 1987. 5-234.

Virgil. With an English Translation by H. Rushton Fairclough. 2 Vols. Loeb. 1916. Rev. ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974.

Williams, Gordon. Technique and Ideas in the Aeneid. New Haven: Yale, 1983. [says Virgil uses gods, etc. as poetic devices, not "real" religion. Rationalizes away Latin religion]

Last Updated: October 13, 2010

© Thompson: 9/22/1998