Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: the Eclogues (or Bucolics), the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid. Some minor poems, collected in the Appendix Vergiliana, were attributed to him in ancient times, but modern scholars regard these as spurious, with the possible exception of some short pieces.
Already acclaimed in his lifetime as a classic author, Virgil rapidly replaced Ennius and other earlier authors as a standard school text, and stood as the most popular Latin poet through late antiquity, the Middle Ages, and early modernity, exerting major influence on Western literature. Geoffrey Chaucer assigned Virgil a uniquely prominent position in history in The House of Fame (1374–85), describing him as standing on a pilere lo bello stile che m'ha fatto onore (Inf. I.86–7) ("thou art alone the one from whom I took the beautiful style that has done honour to me"). In the 20th century, T. S.