Today I want to tell you a story and it starts with a passage from Homer's Iliad.

It's the first one we ever did back in episode one. We read the Iliad of Homer. Remember this is

an epic poem and it's a passage from book 20 and this is beside the god of the sea and of

earthquakes speaking. Beside and says, now I tell you my heart aches for great Anius. He'll go down

to the house of death this instant overwhelmed by Achilles all because he trusted the distant

deadly archers' urgings poor fool as if Apollo would lift a hand to save him now from death,

grim death. Anius, the innocent. Why should Anius suffer here for no good reason,

embroiled in the quarrels of others, not his own? He always gave us gifts to warm our hearts,

gifts for the gods who rule the vaulting skies, so come let us rescue him from death ourselves,

for fear the son of Kronus might just tower in rage if Achilles kills this man. He is destined

to survive. Yes, so the generation of Dardaness will not perish, obliterated without an air,

without a trace, Dardaness, dearest to Zeus of all the sons that mortal women brought to birth

for father. Now he has come to hate the generation of Priam and now Anius will rule the men of Troy

in power, his sons, sons and the sons born in future years. So this is the story of Anius

and this passage and the Iliad itself is basically the oldest set of stories that we have

about Anius because of course this is the first work of Greek literature that comes down to us.

And today the story that I want to tell isn't just the story of how Anius founded Rome in the great

myths. He's the mythical founder of the civilization that would eventually become Rome. And I want

to tell that story but I also want to tell the story about how this kind of be-list character in

the Iliad became the official great founder of the Roman state and the Roman Empire. It's a really

interesting story. It's about literature and politics and history and how these things all kind of

come together and what they meet what it means for today. The thing that I want to draw out of this

...