When we last left our hero, Aeneas was storm-tossed and wishing for death.

He was on the verge of capsizing, losing comrades left and right,

when suddenly in a moment of divine intervention, the God Neptune swept in to calm the storm.

Now, you might think Aeneas could breathe a sigh of relief here, but it turns out

his troubles are just beginning because of all the dirty ports he could have washed up on

in all the Mediterranean, he had to come to this one. It's time we gotta talk about Carthage.

All right, welcome back. If you are just joining us, we are embarking on a tour of Virgil's Aeneid.

This is a Young Heretics special series

on Virgil's great epic, the great Roman epic, and possibly the great epic of antiquity,

question mark. Your mileage may certainly vary. There's a longstanding, raging debate,

centuries-long debate over whether Virgil's just a knock-off of the Greek epic poet Homer or whether he stands in his own right as one of the titans of literature.

That's part of what we're talking about.

Mostly we are just enjoying the adventure of this rip-roar and story.

I'm recommending people follow along at home with Alan

Mandelbaum's translation of the Aeneid. There are lots of English translations out there, many

of them good, but this is my favorite. Something I didn't mention that is a major advantage of this

edition, at least if you get the version I have, is that it has these awesome, awesome illustrations

by Barry Moser. They kind of remind me of the scary stories to tell in the dark series.

I don't know if you guys read those as kids, but I used to love those in high school and middle

school. There were these incredible short stories, ghost stories, and they were

illustrated with these utterly gruesome illustrations. I mean, I can't now believe that

we were allowed to look at these things, and they were done in this similar style of black

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