Vergil (70-19 BCE) wrote the Aeneid, the renowned epic of Roman nationhood. But he himself is a shadowy figure, personally mysterious but publicly mythologized like few other writers. Sarah Ruden uses evidence from Roman life and history alongside Vergil's own writings to make shrewd and careful deductions to reconstruct his life.

Sarah Ruden is an award-winning classics scholar, a poet, and a widely published writer on religion and culture. Her many translations of Greek and Roman works include Vergil's Aeneid and Apuleius's Golden Ass.