15 October is the birthday of Virgil, born Publius Vergilius Maro near Mantua, 70 B.C.E.
Not much is known about his early life, and although some biographers made him out to be a country bumpkin, he probably came from a well-off family who sent him off to get a good education. He may have been socially awkward and sickly, but no one knows for sure. He left behind some of the most beloved poems written in Latin: his pastoral poems, the Eclogues; his poems about farming, the Georgics; and the poem he wanted destroyed, The Aeneid. Emperor Augustus commissioned Virgil to write The Aeneid, and he worked on it for 11 years, but it still wasn't finished at the time of his death. He left behind a request that the unfinished poem be burned, but Augustus forbade this from happening. The emperor's orders were followed, and the Aeneid became a classic, and Virgil's best-known work.
His tomb is outside Naples, and has some spooky legends associated with it. What other spots are good for Virgil-related sightseeing?