The Aeneid — Chronicle
Ordered by book. No event in this book could be dated from the text, so it is not dated — no anchor, no chronology; a date is never inferred. Time expressions are copied from the text as written. Every event links back to one sentence of the original.
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92 events · no event could be dated from the text
Undated
Book 1 · 📍 [[New Carthage]]
Stirred thereby, Dido gathered a company for flight. All assemble in whom hatred of the tyrant was relentless or fear keen; they seize on ships that chanced to lie ready, and load them with the gold. Pygmalion's hoarded wealth is borne overseas; a woman leads the work. They came at last to the land where thou wilt descry a city now great, New Carthage, and her rising citadel, and bought ground, called thence Byrsa, as much as a bull's hide would encircle.
Book 2
And first the serpents twine in their double embrace his two little children, and bite deep in their wretched limbs; then him likewise, as he comes up to help with arms in his hand, they seize and fasten in their enormous coils;
Book 3 · 📍 [[Aeneadae]]
Hither I pass, and on the winding shore I lay under thwarting fates the first foundations of a city, and from my own name fashion its name, Aeneadae.
Book 3 · 📍 [[Crete]]
So I set eagerly to work on the walls of my chosen town, and call it Pergamea
Book 3 · 📍 [[Cyclopes' coast]] · the morrow was rising in the early east
Lord Anchises after little delay gives him his hand, and strengthens his courage by visible pledge.
Book 4
So Iris on dewy saffron pinions flits down through the sky athwart the sun in a trail of a thousand changing dyes, and stopping over her head: 'This hair, sacred to Dis, I take as bidden, and release thee from that body of thine.' So speaks she, and cuts it with her hand. And therewith all the warmth ebbed forth from her, and the life passed away upon the winds.
Book 5
Cloanthus Aeneas
Then the seed of Anchises, summoning all in order, declares Cloanthus conqueror by herald's outcry, and dresses his brows in green bay
Book 5
This gift shalt thou have as from aged Anchises' own hand, a bowl embossed with figures, that once Cisseus of Thrace gave my father Anchises to bear, in high token and guerdon of affection.' So speaking, he twines green bay about his brows, and proclaims Acestes conqueror first before them all.
Book 5
Scarce had he uttered this, when a black tempest rages in streaming showers; earth trembles to the thunder on plain and steep; the water-flood rushes in torrents from the whole heaven amid black darkness and volleying blasts of the South. The ships are filled from overhead, the half-burnt timbers are soaking; till all the heat is quenched, and all the hulls, but four that are lost, are rescued from destruction.
Book 5 · 📍 [[Acesta]]
Acestes is of thine own divine Dardanian race; take him, for he is willing, to join thee in common counsel; deliver to him those who are over, now these ships are lost, and those who are quite weary of thy fortunes and the great quest. Choose out the old men stricken in years, and the matrons sick of the sea, and all that is weak and fearful of peril in thy company. Let this land give a city to the weary; they shall be allowed to call their town Acesta by name.
Book 6 · 📍 [[Latium]]
O past at length with the great perils of the sea! though heavier yet by land await thee, the Dardanians shall come to the realm of Lavinium; relieve thy heart of this care; but not so shall they have joy of their coming. Wars, grim wars I discern, and Tiber afoam with streams of blood. A Simoïs shall not fail thee, a Xanthus, a Dorian camp; another Achilles is already found for Latium, he too goddess-born; nor shall Juno's presence ever leave the Teucrians; while thou in thy need, to what nations or what towns of Italy shalt thou not sue! Again is an alien bride the source of all that Teucrian woe, again a foreign marriage-chamber.
Book 6 · 📍 [[Avernus]]
Immediately Aeneas seizes it and eagerly breaks off its resistance, and carries it beneath the Sibyl's roof.
Book 6 · 📍 [[Wailing Fields]]
Among whom Dido the Phoenician, fresh from her death-wound, wandered in the vast forest;
Book 6 · 📍 [[Latium]]
Aeneas Anchises Caesar Augustus
Here is he, he of whose promise once and again thou hearest, Caesar Augustus, a god's son, who shall again establish the ages of gold in Latium over the fields that once were Saturn's realm, and carry his empire afar to Garamant and Indian
Book 7 · 📍 [[Albunea]] · the silent night
Seek not, O my child, to unite thy daughter in Latin espousals, nor trust her to the bridal chambers ready to thine hand; foreigners shall come to be thy sons, whose blood shall raise our name to heaven, and the children of whose race shall see, where the circling sun looks on either ocean, all the rolling world swayed beneath their feet.
Book 7 · 📍 [[Ardea]] · the black midnight
So, for the stain of the broken peace, he orders his chief warriors to march on King Latinus, and bids prepare for battle, to defend Italy and drive the foe from their borders; himself will suffice for Trojans and Latins together.
Book 8 · 📍 [[Agylla]] · For many years
But at last his citizens, outwearied by his mad excesses, surround him and his house in arms, cut down his comrades, and hurl fire on his roof. Amid the massacre he escaped to the refuge of Rutulian land and the armed defence of Turnus' friendship.
Book 8
Evander Aeneas Pallas (son of Evander)
Over these thousands will I make thee chief, O Aeneas; for their noisy ships crowd all the shore, and they bid the standards advance
Book 8
Aeneas Pallas (son of Evander) Achates
And now the cavalry had issued from the open gates, Aeneas and trusty Achates among the foremost, then other of the Trojan princes, Pallas conspicuous amid the column
Book 9 · So the promised day was come
And immediately each ship breaks the bond that held it, as with dipping prows they plunge like dolphins deep into the water: from it again (O wonderful and strange!) they rise with maidens' faces in like number, and bear out to sea.
Book 9 · night
Euryalus rolls over in death, and the blood runs over his lovely limbs, and his neck sinks and settles on his shoulder; even as when a lustrous flower cut away by the plough droops in death, or weary-necked poppies bow down their head if overweighted with a random shower. But Nisus rushes amidst them, and alone among them all makes at Volscens, keeps to Volscens alone: round him the foe cluster, and on this side and that hurl him back: none the less he presses on, and whirls his sword like lightning, till he plunges it full in the face of the shrieking Rutulian, and slays his enemy as he dies. Then, stabbed through and through, he flung himself above his lifeless friend, and there at last found the quiet sleep of death.
Book 9 · Straightway
Then Meropes and Erymas, then Aphidnus goes down before his hand; then Bitias, fiery-eyed and exultant, not with a javelin; for not to a javelin had he given his life; but the loud-whistling pike came hurled with a thunderbolt's force; neither twofold bull's hide kept it back, nor the trusty corslet's double scales of gold: his vast limbs sink in a heap
Book 9
He ended; the other, putting out all his strength, hurls his rough spear, knotty and unpeeled. The breezes caught it; Juno, daughter of Saturn, made the wound glance off as it came, and the spear sticks fast in the gate. 'But this weapon that my strong hand whirls, this thou shalt not escape; for not such is he who sends weapon and wound.' So speaks he, and rises high on his uplifted sword; the steel severs the forehead midway right between the temples, and divides the beardless cheeks with ghastly wound. He crashes down; earth shakes under the vast weight; dying limbs and brain-spattered armour tumble in a heap to the ground
Book 9 · Then at last
Therefore neither with shield nor hand can he keep his ground, so overpoweringly from all sides comes upon him the storm of weapons. About the hollows of his temples the helmet rings with incessant clash, and the solid brass is riven beneath the stones; the horsehair crest is rent away; the shield-boss avails not under the blows; Mnestheus thunders on with his Trojans, and pours in a storm of spears. All over him the sweat trickles and pours in swart stream, and no breathing space is given; sick gasps shake his exhausted limbs. Then at last, with a headlong bound, he leapt fully armed into the river; the river's yellow eddies opened for him as he came, and the buoyant water brought him up, and, washing away the slaughter, returned him triumphant to his comrades.
Book 10 · to-day
Since it may not be that Ausonians and Teucrians join alliance, and your quarrel finds no term, to-day, what fortune each wins, what hope each follows, be he Trojan or Rutulian, I will hold in even poise
Book 10 · 📍 [[Rutulian fields]]
Pallas (son of Evander) Turnus
He falls heavily on the ground, his armour clashes over him, and his bloodstained face sinks in death on the hostile soil.
Book 10
At last the boy Ascanius and his troops burst through the ineffectual leaguer and issue from the camp.
Book 11
Aeneas Pallas (son of Evander)
This lament done, he bids raise the piteous body, and sends a thousand men chosen from all his army for the last honour of escort
Book 11
Latinus Teucrians
Let all this tract, with a pine-clad belt of mountain height, pass to the Teucrians in friendship; let us name fair terms of treaty
Book 12
By such words the soldiers' counsel was kindled yet higher and higher, and a murmur crept through their columns; the very Laurentines, the very Latins are changed; and they who but now hoped for rest from battle and rescue of fortune now desire arms and pray the treaty were undone, and pity Turnus' cruel lot.
Book 12
a whistling arrow winged its way to him, sped from what hand or driven by what god, none knows, or what chance or deity brought such honour to the Rutulians; the renown of the high deed was buried, nor did any boast to have dealt Aeneas' wound.