Book 1 of the Aeneid introduces Aeneas, a hero destined to become the founder of Rome. Along the way, he will face great battles and challenges thrown before him by Juno, queen of the gods. She wants Carthage to rule the world, but the fates have decreed that Rome will defeat her beloved favorite city.
Juno still resents the judgment of Paris, the unjust slight to her beauty, and she will interfere with Aeneas'destiny however she can. Juno bribes Aeolus, King of the Winds, to sink the Trojan fleet as it leaves Sicily. But the sea god Neptune calms the seas and rescues the ships.
Aeneas and several ships land in a natural harbor on the Libyan coast, but they fear the other ships are lost. In the sky, Aeneas'mother, the love goddess Venus, worries his fate has changed, but Jupiter foretells the future. Aeneas will win a long war and will rule for three years.
Then his son, Ascanius, will rule for 30 years. Their descendants will rule until Romulus founds Rome, which will be an empire without end. Exploring the area where they've landed, Aeneas and his faithful friend, Acades, meet Venus in disguise.
She tells them of Carthage and Dido, its widowed queen, revealing that their missing ships are there. Hidden in Venus's mist, the men covertly enter Carthage, admiring the bustling city. They make their way to the Temple of Judah, where Aeneas feels welcomed by scenes of the Trojan War.
Still hidden, Aeneas and Akades watch Dido welcome the other half of their fleet. The mist dissipates, and Aeneas is revealed. Dido, who knows his story, admires and honors him. Venus, worried that Juno will cause trouble, hatches a plan to protect Aeneas. She bids Cupid to make Dido fall in love with Aeneas.
Pretending to be Aeneas'son, Ascanius, Cupid hugs and charms Dido, making her forget her dead husband, whom she loved deeply. Dido begs Aeneas for the story of his travels. Virgil's Roman epic builds off of, and copies liberally from, Homer's Greek Iliad and Odyssey.
Now, the Iliad follows the warrior Achilles in the Trojan War, and the Odyssey tells of the struggles of Odysseus, called Ulysses in the Aeneid, to get home from the war. Virgil's famous first line, Wars and a man I sing, an exile driven on by fate, sets the stage. Aeneas'fate is tied to the destiny of Rome, and he's presented as a paragon of Roman virtue, but also as having all too human weaknesses. Virgil uses a vast mythology to build toward a prediction of life. of long-lasting peace under Caesar Augustus, the Roman ruler and patron who commissioned Virgil to craft the Aeneid.
Paying homage to Homer, Virgil uses epic similes, extended comparisons of one thing to another that use like or as, to paint vivid pictures on the canvas of the imagination that are still powerful two millennia after they were written.