This is CBSI in the world. I'm John Batchel. Virgil, the poet Virgil, born 70 BCE, died 19 BCE.

What does Virgil have to do, have in common? How is he a presence with our founding fathers? That's right. Two thousand years

apart. And yet, I welcome Robert G. Nadelson. Rob Nadelson is a former constitutional law professor,

classics training, now a senior fellow in constitutional jurisprudence at the Independence Institute

in Denver.

Rob, a very good evening to you.

Virgil and The Revolution.

I love the idea you can put them together.

How so?

Good evening to you, Rob.

Good evening, and it's an honor to be with you.

The founders love Virgil.

I mean, I looked at a website called Founders Online, which collects correspondence by only seven founders, and yet there are nearly 400 references to Virgil in their correspondence.

They use Virgil as a source of inspiration, a source of ideas, a source of language. He was very much a presence at the American founding. In fact, I've called him the poet laureate of the American founding.

This is not a man who has spent his life with a sword in his hand. It's not a man who you would find it the ramparts

of revolution. The presentation made by the scholars and the historians is that he was mild.

He lived his life in the countryside and his temperament was one of a retiring person, shy,

we would call.

That is not inspiration.

So how is it that the founders found him?

Was it part of their education?

Well, you're absolutely right that he did not follow the normal career of a Roman statesman.

...