Parallels between Virgil's Aeneid and Homer's Iliad and Odyssey of Scheria, the land of the Phaeacians, who hospitably take Odysseus in and ask him how he has come to their land. Odysseus spends Books IX through XII recounting his journey from Troy to where he was presently. In Aeneas' case, upon arrival in Carthage, Dido asked Aeneas to share his story, so Books II and III were narrating the fall of Troy and how Aeneas and his people arrived at Carthage. Both heroes sail over the same sea, sometimes visiting the same locations and experiencing the same difficulties. In Book III of the "Aeneid", Aeneas and his men come
Political commentary of the Aeneid of Mars and a vestal virgin. According to the historian Livy, this vestal virgin's name was Rhea Silvia, who is described in Book I of the Aeneid as a descendant of Aeneas. Virgil establishes a stronger connection of Silvia to the Trojans by changing her name in the epic to Ilia. This new name connects her by its similarity to the name "Ilium", another name for the city of Troy, and because it is the feminine form of both Ilus (Aeneas' great-great-grandfather) and Ilus, the second name of Ascanius before the fall of Troy. Virgil also references Julius Caesar's claim