Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Aeneid Box Set: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

Homer is the ancient Greek poet credited with composing the Iliad and the Odyssey, the foundational epics of Western literature. Ancient tradition placed him in Ionia — possibly on the island of Chios or in Smyrna — and dated him to around the eighth century BCE, though modern scholarship debates both his historical existence and the process by which the poems were composed. The Iliad recounts events during the Trojan War, centering on the wrath of Achilles; the Odyssey follows Odysseus on his ten-year journey home. Both epics draw on a long tradition of oral composition and have exerted incalculable influence on Western literature, art, and thought from antiquity through the present day.

Virgil (70 BCE–19 CE), born Publius Vergilius Maro in Mantua, in northern Italy, is one of ancient Rome's greatest poets. He wrote three major works: the Eclogues (c. 37 BCE), pastoral poems influenced by Theocritus; the Georgics (c. 29 BCE), a didactic poem on agriculture and rural life that celebrates the Italian landscape; and the Aeneid, an epic in twelve books recounting the journey of Aeneas from Troy to the founding of Rome, left unfinished at his death. The Aeneid became the foundational text of Roman imperial identity and one of the most influential works in Western literary history, shaping Dante, Milton, and countless others. Virgil was closely associated with the patron Maecenas and Emperor Augustus.