'The Aeneid' is Virgil's Masterpiece. His epic poem recounts the story of Rome's legendary origins from the ashes of Troy and proclaims her destiny of world dominion. This optimistic vision is accompanied by an undertow of sadness at the price that must be paid in human suffering to secure Rome's future greatness. The tension between the public voice of celebration and the tragic private voice is given full expression both in the doomed love of Dido and Aeneas, and in the fateful clash between the Trojan leader and the Italian hero, Turnus. Hailed by T.S. Eliot as "the classic of all Europe", Virgil's 'Aeneid' has enjoyed a unique and enduring influence on European literature, art and politics for the past two thousand years. AUTHOR: Considered the greatest of the Roman poets, Publius Vergilius Maro, known as Virgil (70BC -19BC) took Greek literary traditions and transformed them into something unique. 'The Aeneid', which consists of twelve books, each between 700 and 1,000 lines long, is considered the crowning achievement of Roman culture.