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Hello, welcome to the editor's desk.

This is the podcast where we take a closer look at the essays and articles in the latest print issue of First Things magazine.

I'm Rusty Reno. I'm the editor of First Things Magazine, and I'm here with you today at the editor's desk.

I'd like to welcome Spencer Claven to the podcast.

We're going to talk about his article in the February 26 issue in the footsteps of Aeneas.

Welcome to the podcast, Spencer.

Thanks, Rusty. It's great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Aeneas. Well, for the uninformed, who is Aeneas? Good question.

I guess it's an interesting...

Yeah, how long do you got?

It's the sort of question that before Virgil might have had a very different answer. This poem, which now looms so

large in the canon, makes a kind of interesting choice by plucking this guy out of the Homeric

literature. He shows up first in Homer's Iliad, and he's kind of a bit player. He's one of the

Trojans fighting against the Greeks, so technically in the adversarial position from

Homer's perspective, although Homer, of course, gives a lot of respect to the Trojans. But the God Poseidon does mention in the

Iliad that the Olympians want to save Aeneas from destruction at Troy. They want to keep him around

because they've got a destiny for him to fulfill. And so this was kind of in the air, this notion of a minor Trojan hero who had great things

...