I think every high school graduate should know the answer to the first question, and why he was chosen.
Greatest of Roman poets. The well-educated son of a prosperous provincial farmer, Virgil led a quiet life, though he eventually became a member of the circle around Octavian (later Caesar Augustus) and was patronized by Maecenas. His poetry reflects the turbulence in Italy during a period of civil war and the subsequent trend toward stability. His first major work, the 10 pastoral Eclogues (42-37 BC), may be read as a prophecy of tranquility, and one has even been read as a prophecy of Christianity. The Georgics (37-30 BC) point toward a Golden Age in the form of practical goals: the repopulation of rural Italy and the rehabilitation of agriculture. His great epic, the Aeneid (begun c.29 BC, but unfinished at his death), is one of the masterpieces of world literature; a celebration of the founding of Rome by the legendary Aeneas at the request of Augustus, whose consolidation of power in 31-30 BC unified the Roman world, it also explores the themes of war and the pathos of unrequited love. In later centuries his works were regarded in the Roman empire as virtually sacred, and he was taken up reverently by Christians as well, incl. Dante, who made Virgil his guide through hell and purgatory. Virgil's influence on European literature is perhaps second only to Homer's.
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