He writes in a lucid and attractive style, displaying his admiration for Virgil on every page.' (D.E. Fantazzi, East Carolina University Choice ) Powell is not afraid to use modern parallels that, among other things, demonstrate clearly to a contemporary audience how knowledge of the timing of an event can inform our understanding of it and of a writers’ reasons to include or exclude it. Upper-division undergraduate through faculty. His countercurrent argument is bound to stir up much controversy among traditional Virgilian scholars, which is all to the good. In elaborating this thesis he makes good use of neglected ancient historians of the period-Suetonius, Appian, Dio Cassius. Although he accepts the premises behind analyses of Virgils works based on genre and architecture, Powell sees an overarching political structure. One of Powells objectives here is to shift the focus of Virgilian studies from individual works to the whole oeuvre and to see one intention in all of them, to defend the cause of Octavian-Augustus. Powell himself is much more partial toward Sextus Pompeius-witness Sextus Pompeius, which he edited with Kathryn Welch (2002)-a fierce opponent of Octavian who styled himself Magnus Pius. of Wales) sums up his approach as proceeding from ideals expressed to realities suffered.' A striking example of this is the chapter titled 'The Theft of Pietas,' in which the author argues that Virgil, unable to credit Octavian with pietas, creates the image of a pius ancestor, Aeneas, the incarnation of this virtue, which would then be transferred by association to Octavian. Toward the end of this book, Powell (Univ.
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