William Harris on Vergil

Publius Vergilius Maro was born October 15, 70 BC at Andes, near Mantua, in Cisalpine Gaul. He died 51 years later on September 21, 19 BC at Brundisium, possibly as the result of sunstroke. He was thought to have been sickly, slow of speech, and of a countrified appearance. His writing was sometimes criticized for its rusticity, too. But he wasn't ill-educated. He studied law, medicine, mathematics, and probably some Epicurean philosophy.

Wealth and power were not part of his inheritance, but he had the good fortune to win the friendship and patronage of influential men. When in 41 BC his estate was appropriated as part of a distribution of land to war veterans (or (http://www.edenpr.k12.mn.us/ephs/ArcadiaWeb/Virgil/Vergil.Poetry.html) "in order to pay and satisfy his army for their defeat of the assassins of G. Julius Caesar"), through the assistance of two influential men, Pollio and Cornelius Gallus, he recovered it. Maecenas and even Augustus came to support Vergil's poetic endeavors.