Epic and Empire: Politics and Generic Form from Virgil to Milton - David Quint, Professor David Quint, James Chandler, Lionel Gossman - Google Books

https://books.google.de/books?id=kEVfg-3bA98C&pg=PA182#v=onepage

Alexander the Great, according to Plutarch, carried on his campaigns a copy of the Iliad, kept alongside a dagger; on a more pronounced ideological level, ancient Romans looked to the Aeneid as an argument for imperialism. In this major reinterpretation of…