The Seventh Book of the Aeneid introduces us to the second half of the poem, the Iliad of war which succeeds the Odyssey of travel. Its subject is the landing of the Trojans in Latium, and the causes of the native rising which threatened to exterminate the new settlers.

As in other cases, we know that there were other versions of the story, substantially agreeing with Virgil's while circumstantially differing from it: as in other cases, we have no means of judging how far the differences in Virgil's account are attributable to his own fancy, how far to bis having followed yet other accounts, now lost. The first event after the landing, the casual fulfilment of the prophecy that the Trojans should eat their tables, seems in one form or other to have been a prominent part of the legend. Ancient authors related it variously, even Virgil's own account of the prophecy as given here being inconsistent with that given in the Third Book: modern critics have seen a philosophical meaning in it, of which Virgil may safely be pronounced never to have dreamed, and with which therefore a commentator on Virgil has no occasion to trouble himself. The interview of llioneus with Latiuus perhaps reminds us too much of his interview with Dido in the First Book: but the effect on Latinus' own mind, prepared as it had been by omens and predictions, is well and forcibly portrayed. The interposition of Juno and the introduction of Alleeto are apparently original, and quite in the style of epic poetry.