Virgil that Virgil seems to divide the "Aeneid" into two sections based on the poetry of Homer; the first six books were viewed as employing the "Odyssey" as a model while the last six were connected to the "Iliad". Book 1 (at the head of the Odyssean section) opens with a storm which Juno, Aeneas' enemy throughout the poem, stirs up against the fleet. The storm drives the hero to the coast of Carthage, which historically was Rome's deadliest foe. The queen, Dido, welcomes the ancestor of the Romans, and under the influence of the gods falls deeply in love with
Virgil the "Aeneid" in "Amores" 1.1.1–2, and his summary of the Aeneas story in Book 14 of the "Metamorphoses", the so-called "mini-Aeneid", has been viewed as a particularly important example of post-Virgilian response to the epic genre. Lucan's epic, the "Bellum Civile" has been considered an anti-Virgilian epic, disposing with the divine mechanism, treating historical events, and diverging drastically from Virgilian epic practice. The Flavian poet Statius in his 12-book epic "Thebaid" engages closely with the poetry of Virgil; in his epilogue he advises his poem not to "rival the divine "Aeneid", but follow afar and ever venerate its footsteps." In