Founding of Rome the line of Romans through his son Iulus, the namesake of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. The national epic of mythical Rome, the "Aeneid" of Virgil, tells the story of how Trojan prince Aeneas came to Italy. The "Aeneid" was written under Augustus, who claimed ancestry through Julius Caesar from the hero and his mother Venus. According to the "Aeneid", the survivors from the fallen city of Troy banded together under Aeneas and underwent a series of adventures around the Mediterranean Sea, including a stop at newly founded Carthage under the rule of Queen Dido, eventually reaching the Italian coast. The Trojans
Virgil "Georgics" to Octavian upon his return from defeating Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC. The "Aeneid" is widely considered Virgil's finest work and one of the most important poems in the history of western literature. Virgil worked on the "Aeneid" during the last eleven years of his life (29–19 BC), commissioned, according to Propertius, by Augustus. The epic poem consists of 12 books in dactylic hexameter verse which describe the journey of Aeneas, a warrior fleeing the sack of Troy, to Italy, his battle with the Italian prince Turnus, and the foundation of a city