The "Thebaid" was not widely read in antiquity, but was held in high esteem throughout the Middle Ages, when multiple adaptions of the poem were composed in vernacular languages. Preserved through the Carolingian Renaissance, the text of the "Thebaid" reached modernity without the recognition it once held. While classical scholars of the 19th and early 20th century criticised the poem for a perceived lack of originality and taste, a resurgence of critical interest has since brought it closer to the centre of the literary canon.