One of the blueprints for imperialism has always been The Aeneid, by the Roman poet Virgil, working between 29 and 19 BC. It tells the story of Aeneas, a Trojan leader on the run with his son ...

Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney's translation of Book VI of Virgil's Aeneid, in which Aeneas travels into the underworld to meet the spirit of his father. Read by Ian McKellen.

Augustus Caesar, the newly minted Emperor, full of crusading zeal, embarked on a bit of a re-brand, and the Aeneid was Virgil’s way of supporting Augustus Caesar’s aims. “You’ve never had ...