Browse all of the Salem on Literature series

Vergil (Encyclopedia of the Ancient World)

Life

Vergil, the greatest of the Roman poets, sprang from peasant origins. The Roman historian Suetonius reports that his father was either a potter or a day-laborer who married his employer’s daughter. Her name, Magia Pollia, contributed to the medieval practice of reading Vergil’s works as poems of prophecy. This peculiar form of bibliomancy, which came to be known as the sortes Vergilianae, also accounts for the corrupted form of the poet’s name, “Virgil” (from virga, “wand”), which so...

[The entire page is 1556 words long]

Join eNotes

The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:

eNotes Pass

Dictionary Tip:

Lookup any word on eNotes with our dictionary. Highlight the word and press SHIFT + D for a definition, or SHIFT + T for a synonym.