The Aeneid
Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics
BBC
4.8 • 598 Ratings
🗓️ 2 September 2025
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In a tour de force solo performance, Natalie takes on Virgil's great poem in 28 minutes.. and wins.
In 12 books of Latin verse we follow the hero, the Trojan Prince Aeneas, as he leads the survivors of Troy to found a new city in Italy. Along the way he battles vengeful Juno, tells of the Trojan Horse and the Fall of Troy, loves and leaves Dido in Carthage, enters Hades, eats some tables and then sees his ships turn into sea nymphs and swim away from attack. Then there is more fighting until our hero emerges triumphant.
The poet Virgil died before finishing it and ordered it to be burned, but luckily his orders were disregarded by Augustus, the first Emperor of Rome, for whom The Aeneid was excellent propaganda.
'Rockstar mythologist' Natalie Haynes is the best-selling author of 'Divine Might', 'Stone Blind', and 'A Thousand Ships' as well as a reformed comedian who is a little bit obsessive about Ancient Greek and Rome.
Producer...Beth O'Dea
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:05.5 | Today I am standing up for the Aeneid. |
| 0:13.7 | This is an epic poem about the founding of Rome that connects the city back to Greek mythology |
| 0:24.4 | and specifically to the mythology of Homer, the Iliad, the Odyssey. It is the story of the survivors |
| 0:30.8 | of Troy, who set out to found a new city and start new lives under their leader, the Trojan Prince Eeneas. |
| 0:39.3 | It was composed between 29 and 19 BCE by the poet Virgil who died leaving it unfinished. |
| 0:48.2 | He gave orders for it to be burned, but luckily these were disregarded by Augustus, Rome's first emperor. |
| 0:56.4 | That's Brian Blessed for those of you |
| 0:57.8 | who are doing it that way. |
| 1:00.1 | He is really keen, understandably, |
| 1:02.0 | that a 12-book poem linking him as a leader, |
| 1:05.1 | right back to Aeneas, a man renowned for his pietas |
| 1:09.7 | is the word in Latin, his dutifulness. He really wants this poem to be |
| 1:13.9 | widely read and become wildly popular. He gets his wish. The Inid has been read by schoolchildren |
| 1:19.9 | to teach them better Latin since it was written. So I thought what we would do is try to do the |
| 1:26.2 | fall of Troy and the disastrous travels that this small band of Trojans have, having left Troy, and then like a small war that they get involved in when they arrive in Italy. |
| 1:39.5 | It is 12 books of Latin verse. |
| 1:42.3 | We've got 27 and a half minutes. I think it's all going to be fine, |
| 1:46.9 | isn't it? Great. So the Aeneid begins. Arma Wyrumqueharno, I sing of arms and the man. |
| 1:54.9 | And that man is, of course, Inneas. He is famed for being dutiful, the first mention of this |
| 2:00.0 | line 10 of the poem. His pietas is the thing that |
| 2:04.1 | motivates him through this entire poem. We'll come back to it over and over again. The goddess |
... |
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