Virgil took the disconnected tales of Aeneas' wanderings, his vague association with the foundation of Rome and a personage of no fixed characteristics other than a scrupulous piety, and fashioned this into a compelling founding myth or national epic that at once tied Rome to the legends of Troy, explained the Punic wars, glorified traditional Roman virtues and legitimized the Julio-Claudian dynasty as descendants of the founders, heroes and gods of Rome and Troy
The author of "The Iliad" is Homer. It is a poem work of Epic genre. It is written in Ancient Greek language. The time and place where the book was written is unknown, but probably it was written at mainland Greece, around 750 B.C. Date of first publication and the first publisher for the book is unknown. The narrator is the poet himself who declares himself to be the medium through which one or many of the Muses speak. The narrator speaks in the third person. He is an omniscient narrator (he has access to every character's mind), he frequently gives insight into the thoughts and feelings of even minor characters, gods and mortals alike. The tone of the epic is awe-inspired, ironic, lamenting and pitying. Past tense is used in the written form. Setting time is Bronze Age (around the twelfth or thirteenth century B.C.); The Iliad begins nine years after the start of the Trojan War. Setting place of the poem is Troy (a city in what is now northwestern Turkey) and its immediate environs. Protagonist of the epic is Achilles. Major conflict of the poem is Agamemnon's demand for Achilles' war prize, the maiden Briseis, which wounds Achilles' pride; Achilles' consequent refusal to fight causes the Achaeans to suffer greatly in their battle against the Trojans. Rising action of the poem is Hector's assault on the Achaean ships; the return of Patroclus to combat; the death of Patroclus. Climax of the poem is Achilles' return to combat turns the tide against the Trojans once and for all and ensures the fated fall of Troy to which the poet has alluded throughout the poem.
