1459, The Ink of Empires

In fourteen fifty-nine, the air in Mainz grew thick,

heavy with the scent of hot lead and Gutenberg’s ink.

There, Virgil’s Aeneid was reborn in iron press—

pulled from the brine of antiquity,

dry and crisp, ready to conquer the world again.

Go back further, to twenty-nine B.C.

Octavian sits on a throne of marble and dust,

craving a myth to burnish the Roman steel.

He needs a pedigree, a sacred shrine of words,

so he summons Virgil—the architect of verse.

The poet kept his candle burning against the dark,

chasing the ghosts of Homer across the page.

He stitched the Iliad to the Odyssey with Latin thread,

wondering, perhaps, if he was a prophet—

or just a man building a golden cage for an Emperor’s pride.

"Listen," Virgil whispered to the centuries:

When Troy fell to the Greek fire and the wooden lie,

Aeneas didn't die. He slipped through the salt-crusted creeks,

sailing toward the setting sun to plant a seed in Italian soil—

the iron root of an Empire that would hold the world in its palm.

But history is a circle, not a line.

I’ve walked the halls of the elite and the gutters of the lost,

hearing the rumors that the wind carries back East.

By three-thirty, the sons of Troy grew restless for the dawn;

they looked back to the Greek light, to the shores of Byzantium.

Safe harbors in a crumbling age.

They mingled their Roman law with the local salt,

renaming the world Constantinople—

a Greco-Roman blessing, a second Troy,

where the sun rose on an Empire that forgot how to fall.

 

The Aeneid is a Latin epic poem,written by

Virgil between 29 and 19 BC,that tells the  

legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who    

travelled to Italy, where he became the       

ancestor of the Romans.                              

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to be continued

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ELENCHUS... A Trial of History"    (6)

PUBLICATION IDENTITY & CREDITS

Original Text & Inspiration:

Panayotis V. Mataragas (Rotterdam)

The foundational vision, drafted at the crossroads of European history.

Language Editing & Adaptation:

Kellene G. Safis (Chicago)

Refining the rhythm and pulse through a definitive American lens.

Digital Editing & Formatting:

Cathy Rapakoulia Mataraga (Piraeus)

The architectural assembly and final form at the Great Port.

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*The Aeneid, (/ᵻˈniːɪd/; Latin: Aeneis [ae̯ˈneːɪs]) is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It comprises 9,896 lines in dactylic hexameter. The first six of the poem's twelve books tell the story of Aeneas's wanderings from Troy to Italy, and the poem's second half tells of the Trojans' ultimately victorious war upon the Latins, under whose name Aeneas and his Trojan followers are destined to be subsumed.
The hero Aeneas was already known to Greco-Roman legend and myth, having been a character in the Iliad. Virgil took the disconnected tales of Aeneas's wanderings, his vague association with the foundation of Rome and a personage of no fixed characteristics other than a scrupulous pietas, and fashioned this into a compelling founding myth or national epic that at once tied Rome to the legends of Troy, explained the Punic Wars, glorified traditional Roman virtues, and legitimized the Julio-Claudian dynasty as descendants of the founders, heroes, and gods of Rome and Troy.

Α practice repeated through the ancient literary Silver Age. The Aeneid was also the inspiration for John Milton’s Paradise Lost, which reflected its epic structure, style and diction.

During his younger years, political and military strife afflicted Italy when the Roman Republic dispelled. A civil war between Marius and Sulla was followed by turmoil between Pompey and Julius Caesar. Caesar began a series of civil wars that lasted until the victory of Caesar Augustus (also known as Octavian) in 31 B.C. These experiences seared Virgil deeply, creating an abhorrence and fear of civil war 

* Virgil - Publius Vergilius Maro, was a famed Roman poet born on October 15, 70 B.C. in Italy. His last and most notable work was the epic poem the Aeneid, where he strove to exemplify what he positioned as Rome’s divine destiny. Written in 12 books, the poem is still regarded as a literary masterpiece today, with some questioning whether the poet also exhibited ambivalence over the cost of empire. The poem heavily relied upon Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey from the eighth century B.C. 

One of the most famous passages as noted in a Harvard University reading of the Aeneid is, “Easy is the descent to Avernus, for the door to the underworld lies open both day and night. But to retrace your steps and return to the breezes above—that's the task, that's the toil.”

It told the saga of an exiled hero Trojan prince named Aeneid after the destruction of Troy by the Greeks in the 12th century B.C. 
After his death, Virgil’s influence continued to inspire other poets throughout the ages. The poet died of fever in Brundisium (modern day Brindisi), Italy, on September 21, 19 B.C.

Virgil spent 11 years working on the Aeneid, left unfinished at the time of his death. When he died he left instructions not published, but Octavian did not follow his will. 
His art inspired others such as his younger contemporary, poet Ovid, whose work was reminiscent of Virgil's but withthat was often reflected in his text.
Virgil’s earliest work was the Eclogues, written between 42 and 37 B.C. The 10 hexameter poems reflected a stilted exploration of the pastoral world that Virgil perennially revered, with the Greek poet Theocritus providing inspiration for the collection.
Virgil also composed the Georgics, written between 37 and 30 B.C., towards the end of the civil wars. Georgics focused on the ins and outs of agricultural life, serving as a straightforward treatise supported by Augustus. 

 ELEGHOS... at history