The Death of the Latin Poet Virgil

Statue of Virgil

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On September 21st 19 BCE, the great Latin poet Publius Virgilius Maro died in Brindisi, a few weeks short of his fifty-first birthday.  

A bronze statue of Virgil, as the poet is better known in English, stands outside a high school in the centre of Rome. It was erected in 1938 and an inscription on the exterior of the school, which is named after the poet, proclaims: HINC PROGENIEM VIRTVTE / FVTVRAM EGREGIAM (From here there will be offspring, excellent for its virtue). It is a quotation from the seventh book of The Aeneid, Virgil's most famous work. 

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