Scholars have unearthed a thrilling new inscription from Augustin Rome.

They were digging in the forum when they came across a block of stone, a monument inscribed

apparently by the Emperor Augustus' own hand.

And now that the epigraphists have gotten a chance to decipher it, the translation seems to be something like this. Virgil,

are you mad at me?

Okay, that's not a thing. Just want to be very clear. There has not been an inscription

unearthed from the Emperor Augustus asking Virgil

if he's mad.

I don't know if you've ever seen the meme where it's Alice in Wonderland and the mad hatter

says, we are all mad here.

And Alice says, at me?

For some reason I always loved that meme.

And I kind of imagine Augustus saying this to Virgil

if he were alive today.

And that's an important point, because this question that we are going to address today about

whether Virgil is mad at Augustus is in many ways a thoroughly modern question.

But it's when we have to address, and we haven't really

talked about it in this whole Aeneid series,

because I've been getting us oriented in the poem

and trying to really dig into the ancient concerns of the poem.

But now, at the end of book six, the climax

of this incredible journey through the underworld

...