Ancient Roman poet whose Aeneid is still used today as an oracular book, purportedly to predict, interpret, and so it is hoped, control the future. In the Aeneid Virgil set out a mythological history for Rome to show his people retrospectively where their destiny lay. The admonitory stand and the giving of moral instructions to the reader can be seen to act at the time of writing as a moral injunction to the people of Rome to remind them of their responsibilities. And throughout history it has become a book that many believe to have great oracular powers, much like the 1 Ching, that helps and advises readers, whatever their problems.
Virgil lived during the time of Caesar and saw the end of the Republic and the start of Imperial Rome. He did not try to write strictly realistic history, but took for his model Homer, who had lived a thousand years prior to him and who wrote legendary narratives, the Iliad and the Odyssey, about the early Greeks. What Homer did for Greece, Virgil thought he could do for Rome. So Virgil wrote about he imagined origin of Roman nation starting with the sack of Troy in times long before the foundation of Rome itself.