The Aeneid tells how the Trojan Aeneas, fleeing burning Troy, crosses the Mediterranean by order of fate, is loved by Dido in Carthage and leaves her, descends to the world of the dead, reaches Latium, and defeats in war the Rutulian chief Turnus, so that Rome may be born from that line.
The first six books are the journey. Juno, who hates the Trojans, raises a storm that drives the fleet to Libya. In Carthage, Queen Dido welcomes Aeneas and asks him to tell of the fall of Troy, the wooden horse, and the years of wandering. She falls in love, he sets out by order of the gods, and she kills herself on the pyre. In Sicily, Aeneas holds games in honor of his dead father and loses his pilot Palinurus. At Cumae, the Sibyl guides him to the world of the dead, where Anchises shows him the future Romans, up to Augustus.
The last six books are the war. In Latium, King Latinus promises his daughter Lavinia to the stranger, but Juno sends the Fury Alecto to kindle the anger of Queen Amata and of Turnus, Lavinia's suitor. Aeneas seeks allies with Evander and the Etruscans and receives arms made by Vulcan, among them a shield with the future history of Rome. Nisus and Euryalus die in a night raid, Turnus kills Pallas, Aeneas kills Mezentius, and the warrior Camilla falls in combat.
In the last book, the duel between Aeneas and Turnus would decide the war and the bride, but the agreement breaks through the work of Juno and Juturna, Turnus's sister. Before the final blow, Jupiter and Juno reach a pact in heaven: the Latins keep their name and language, and the Trojans mingle with them. The poem ends with Aeneas plunging his sword into Turnus.