Virgil

Politics as Ripping Yarns: the breathless brio of Boris Johnson’s memoir

12 October 2024 9:00 am

Like a cross between Aeneas and Biggles, our intrepid hero travels the world, endures a thousand ordeals and makes himself father of the world’s greatest city

Should Labour be messing with the school curriculum?

24 August 2024 9:00 am

Labour’s new education secretary wishes, as usual, to change everything. She might consider the advice of the Roman educationist Quintilian…

The horror of finding oneself ‘young-old’

11 November 2023 9:00 am

‘I used to run upstairs all the time,’ sixtysomething Marcus Berkmann recalls wistfully, as, midway through life’s journey, he wakes to find himself in a dark wood

What will I do with a second chance at life? Play more video games

26 March 2016 9:00 am

Does a near-death experience make you a better person? This is something I’ve been thinking about on and off since…

Aeneas and the shade of Dido by Bartolomeo Pinelli.

Gifts from beyond the grave — from Virgil and Seamus Heaney

19 March 2016 9:00 am

Andrew Motion finds a touching parallel between Virgil’s unfinished Aeneid and Seamus Heaney’s barely finished translation of Book VI

Looking for the meaning of life? Come to Constantine Phipps' poetic theme park

31 May 2014 9:00 am

A favourite game of mine is to imagine Virgil and Homer today, plying their trade among the supermarkets and office…

Marble portrait of Augustus, c.40 BC

What Emperor Augustus left us

15 February 2014 9:00 am

Roderick Conway Morris on the influence and legacy of Augustus

Roman baths didn't make you clean — and other gems from Peter Jones's Veni, Vedi, Vici

9 November 2013 9:00 am

Spectator readers need no introduction to Peter Jones. His Ancient and Modern column has instructed and delighted us for many…

Country Boy, by Richard Hillyer - review

10 August 2013 9:00 am

Under his real name, Charles James Stranks, the author of this little masterpiece wrote on a number of ecclesiastical subjects:…