Virgil in the context of "Rome"

The Trojan War was a legendary conflict in Greek mythology that took place around the twelfth or thirteenth century BC. The war was waged by the Achaeans (Greeks) against the city of Troy after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, king of Sparta. The war is one of the most important events in Greek mythology, and it has been narrated through many works of Greek literature, most notably Homer's Iliad. The core of the Iliad (Books II – XXIII) describes a period of four days and two nights in the tenth year of the decade-long siege of Troy; the Odyssey describes the journey home of Odysseus, one of the war's heroes. Other parts of the war are described in a cycle of epic poems, which have survived through fragments. Episodes from the war provided material for Greek tragedy and other works of Greek literature, and for Roman poets including Virgil and Ovid.

The ancient Greeks believed that Troy was located near the Dardanelles and that the Trojan War was a historical event of the twelfth or thirteenth century BC. By the mid-nineteenth century AD, both the war and the city were widely seen as non-historical, but in 1868, the German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann met Frank Calvert, who convinced Schliemann that Troy was at what is now Hisarlık in modern-day Turkey. On the basis of excavations conducted by Schliemann and others, this claim is now accepted by most scholars.

In poetry, an epic is a lengthy narrative poem typically about the extraordinary deeds of extraordinary characters who, in dealings with gods or other superhuman forces, gave shape to the mortal universe for their descendants. With regard to oral tradition, epic poems consist of formal speech and are usually learnt word for word, contrasted with narratives that consist of everyday speech, categorised into 'factual' or fiction, the former of which is less susceptible to variation.

Influential epics that have shaped Western literature and culture include Homer's Iliad and Odyssey; Virgil's Aeneid; and the anonymous Beowulf, Epic of Manas and Epic of Gilgamesh. The genre has inspired the adjective epic as well as derivative works in other mediums (such as epic films) that evoke or emulate the characteristics of epics.

The Western canon is the embodiment of high-culture literature, music, philosophy, and works of art that are highly cherished across the Western world, such works having achieved the status of classics.

Recent discussions upon the matter emphasise cultural diversity within the canon. The canons of music and visual arts have been broadened to encompass often overlooked periods, whilst recent media like cinema grapple with a precarious position. Criticism arises, with some viewing changes as prioritising activism over aesthetic values, often associated with critical theory, as well as postmodernism. Another critique highlights a narrow interpretation of the West, dominated by British and American culture, at least under contemporary circumstances, prompting demands for a more diversified canon amongst the hemisphere.

Latin literature includes the essays, histories, poems, plays, and other writings written in the Latin language. The beginning of formal Latin literature dates to 240 BC, when the first stage play in Latin was performed in Rome. Latin literature flourished for the next six centuries. The classical era of Latin literature can be roughly divided into several periods: early Latin literature, the golden age, the imperial period and Late Antiquity.

Latin was the language of the ancient Romans as well as being the lingua franca of Western and Central Europe throughout the Middle Ages. Latin literature features the work of Roman authors, such as Cicero, Virgil, Ovid and Horace, but also includes the work of European writers after the fall of the Empire, from religious writers like Aquinas (1225–1274) to secular writers like Francis Bacon (1561–1626), Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677), and Isaac Newton (1642–1727).

Helen (Ancient Greek: Ἑλένη, romanized: Helénē), also known as Helen of Troy, or Helen of Sparta, and in Latin as Helena, was a figure in Greek mythology said to have been the most beautiful woman in the world. She was believed to have been the daughter of Zeus by Leda or Nemesis, and the sister of Clytemnestra, Castor, Pollux, Philonoe, Phoebe and Timandra. She was first married to King Menelaus of Sparta "who became by her the father of Hermione, and, according to others, of Nicostratus also." Her subsequent marriage to Paris of Troy was the most immediate cause of the Trojan War.

Elements of her putative biography come from ancient Greek and Roman authors such as Homer, Hesiod, Euripides, Virgil and Ovid. In her youth, she was abducted by Theseus. A competition between her suitors for her hand in marriage saw Menelaus emerge victorious. All of her suitors were required to swear an oath (known as the Oath of Tyndareus) promising to provide military assistance to the winning suitor, if Helen were ever stolen from him. The obligations of the oath precipitated the Trojan War. When she married Menelaus she was still very young. In most accounts, including Homer's, Helen ultimately fell in love with Paris and willingly went to Troy with him, though there are also stories in which she was abducted.

Publius Ovidius Naso (Latin: [ˈpuːbliʊs ɔˈwɪdiʊs ˈnaːsoː]; 20 March 43 BC – AD 17/18), known in English as Ovid (/ˈɒvɪd/ OV-id), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a younger contemporary of Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the three canonical poets of Latin literature. The Imperial scholar Quintilian considered him the last of the Latin love elegists. Although Ovid enjoyed enormous popularity during his lifetime, the emperor Augustus exiled him to Tomis, the capital of the newly organised province of Moesia, on the Black Sea, where he remained for the last nine or ten years of his life. Ovid himself attributed his banishment to a carmen et error ("poem and a mistake"), but his reluctance to disclose specifics has resulted in much speculation among scholars.

Ovid is most famous for the Metamorphoses, a continuous mythological narrative in fifteen books written in dactylic hexameters. He is also known for works in elegiac couplets such as Ars Amatoria ("The Art of Love") and Fasti. His poetry was much imitated during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and greatly influenced Western art and literature. The Metamorphoses remains one of the most important sources of classical mythology today.