I, Virgil - Paperback

by David Wishart (Author)

He is poisoning me. I saw it in his eyes before we sailed, despite the smile on his lips: 'It's only a fever, Virgil. And you deserve it for traipsing off to Greece without telling me. What made you think the poem needed three years' editing, you beetroot?' It is as artificial as it sounds, this bluff heartiness and rustic eccentricity of language. Like so many of his amiable qualities it serves a very practical purpose. Octavian is nothing if not a pragmatist. Literally nothing. Strip the layers from an onion. The bit that is left, that is Octavian. I, Virgil, the 'autobiography' of Rome's greatest poet, traces the fall of the Republic and the rise of the first emperor, Augustus Caesar. Warts and all.

Author Biography

David Wishart was born in Arbroath, Scotland. He studied Classics at Edinburgh University, and after a spell of teaching Latin and Greek in secondary school retrained as a teacher of English as a Foreign Language, working for various companies in Kuwait, Greece and Saudi Arabia. He returned to Scotland in 1990, and lives in Carnoustie, Angus. His first book, 'I, Virgil', was published in 1995; 'Ovid' - the first of the Marcus Corvinus series - followed a year later. He is married to Rona and has two children and (currently) four grandchildren.