The Aeneid, then, in addition to appealing to us as a timeless work of literature, also has a documentary interest for present-day readers. In this light, it can be seen as an attempt to inculcate in its first readers a reverence for the history of the Roman Empire and a love for traditional Roman virtues and for Rome itself. Many of the laws and customs that were so prized by Romans remain our own, and other achievements of Rome continue to affect us as well. For example, Roman architecture, derived from Greek models but made more daringly massive and imposing because of Roman engineering genius, influenced the style of edifices that have followed down to our own time. Perhaps most important, Latin, in which the Aeneid was written, is the foundation of the modern romance languages — notably French, Spanish, and Italian — now spoken in the countries that occupy the regions that were once part of the Roman Empire, and from which the English language is also derived.
While we cannot approach the epic poem in the patriotic fervor of its first readers, for whom it was a national epic intended to glorify Rome's power and destiny, the adventures of Aeneas and his followers, who go in search of a new homeland after the Greeks's destruction of Troy, continue to interest us because they appeal to our basic human desire to believe in a meaningful world watched over and directed by a divine providence, in which heroic perseverance is finally rewarded.
