Book 1 -

Neptune calms the sea: ”when disorder arises among the people of a great city and the common mob runs riot… if people chance to see a man who has some weight among them for his goodness and his services to the state, they fall silent… his words command their passions and soother their hearts”

Carthage is busy with work: “like bees at the beginning of summer… The hive seethes with activity and the fragrance of honey flavoured with thyme is everywhere.”

Dido arrives at the Temple: “like Diana leading the dance on the banks of Eurotas or along the ridges of Mount Cynthus… a quiver on her shoulder… the tallest of all the goddesses… like Diana she bore herself joyfully among her people”

Book 2 -

Laocoon is killed: “horrible cries” like “the bellowing of a wounded bull shaking the ineffectual axe out of its neck as it flees from the altar”

The Greeks storm Troy: “like a shepherd when a furious south wind is carrying fire into a field of grain, or a mountain river whirls along in spate, flattening all the fields… while the shepherd stands stupefied on the top of the rock…”

Androgeos mistakes Aeneas and his men for Greeks: “like a man going through rough briers who steps on a snake with all his weight without seeing it, and starts back in sudden panic…”

Pyrrhus: “like a snake which has fed on poisonous herbs and hidden all winter… but now it emerges into the light, casts its slough and is renewed.”

The destruction of Troy: “like an ancient ash tree high in the mountains which farmers have hacked with blow upon blow of their double axes, labouring to fell it… at last it succumbs to its wounds and breaks with a dying groan…”

Book 4 -

Dido is infected with love: “a wounded doe which a shepherd hunting in the woods of Crete has caught off guard, striking her… with a steel-tipped shaft; the arrow flies and is left in her body without his knowing it; she runs away… sticking in her side is the arrow that will bring her death.”

Aeneas joins Dido on the hunt: “like Apollo leaving his winter home in Lycia and the waters of the river Xanthus to visit his mother at Delos, there to start the dancing again… his streaming hair caught up and shaped into a soft garland of green and twined round a band of gold, and the arrows sound on his shoulders…”

The Trojans preparing their ships to leave Carthage: “like ants plundering a huge heap of wheat and storing it away in their home against the winter… the whole track seethes with activity.”

Aeneas follows his duty, and cannot listen to Anna’s pleas on behalf of her sister: “as the north winds off the Alps vie with one another to uproot the mighty oak whose timber has hardened over long years of life… the trunk feels the shock… but it holds on to the rocks with roots plunged as deep into the world below as its crown soars towards the winds of heaven…”

Dido’s tragedy is compared to Euripides’ Bacchae: “like Pentheus in his frenzy when he was seeing columns of Furies and a double sun and two cities of Thebes”

Dido’s tragedy is compared to Orestes: “like Orestes… driven in flight across the stage by his own mother armed with her torches and black snakes, while the avenging Furies sat at the door”

Book 5 -

Mnestheus in the boat race: “like a dove startled out of the cave where it has its home and its beloved nestlings… it flies off in terror to the fields… but soon it swoops down through the quiet air… its wings are swift but they scarcely move…”

Sergestus finishes the boat race: “Like a snake caught crossing a raised road… and run over by a bronze wheel or battered by a traveller with a heavy stone and left mangled and half-dead, it tries in vain to escape…”

Nisus in the race: “swifter than the wind and the wings of lightning”

Dares fighting Entellus in the boxing match: “like attacking some massive high-built city or besieging a mountain fortress”

Entellus falls: “as a hollow pine tree… torn up by the roots on great Mount Ida or on Erymanthus.”

Entellus batters Dares: “Like hailstones from a dark cloud rattling down on roofs…”

Book 6 -

The golden bough: “Just as the mistletoe… puts out fresh foliage in the woods in the cold of winter… so shone the golden foliage on the dark ilex, so rustled the golden foil in the gentle breeze.”

The dead in Acheron that Aeneas spots from Charon’s boat: “as many as are leaves that fall in the forest at the first chill on autumn… as the birds that flock to land from deep ocean when the cold season of the year drives them…”

Aeneas sees Dido: “like a man who sees or thinks he has seen the new moon rising through the clouds at the beginning of the month…”

Aeneas in Elysium: “like bees in a meadow on a clear summer day, settling on all the many-coloured flowers…”

Book 7 -

Amata goes mad: “like a spinning top flying under the plaited whip when boys are engrossed in their play…”

Turnus goes mad: “as though a heap of brushwood were crackling and burning under the sides of a bronze vessel, making the water seethe and leap up, a great river of it raging in the pot…”

The stag: “as though begging and pleading”

Latinus refuses to marry Lavinia to anyone other than Aeneas: “unmoved… like a rock in the ocean pounded by breakers… while reefs and foam-soaked scars roar in helpless anger…”

Catillus and Coras: “like two cloud-born Centaurs plunging down in wild career from the snow-clad tops of Mount Homole or Mount Orthrys…”

Messapus’ men: “singing the praises of their king like white swans flying back from their feeding grounds through wisps of cloud and pouring out the measured music from their long necks while far and wide the echo of their singing beats back from the river…”

Clausus’ men: “as many as the waves that roll in from the Libyan ocean when fierce Orion is sinking into the winter sea… as thick as the ears of corn scorched by the early sun on the plain of Hermus…”

Book 8 -

Aeneas considers how to act now war has broken out: “like light flickering from water in bronze vessels as it is reflected from the sun or its image the moon…”

Hercules breaks into Cacus’ lair: “as though the very depths of the earth were to gape in some cataclysm and unbar the chamber of the underworld… so that the vast abyss could be seen from above with the shades of the dead in panic as the light floods in.”

Pallas as he joins Aeneas: “like the Morning Star, which Venus loves above all other starry fires, as he leaves his ocean bath and lifts up his holy face into the sky to scatter the darkness.”

Book 9 -

Turnus’ actions outside the walls of the Trojan encampment: “like a wolf in the dead of night, lying in wait in all the wind and rain by a pen full of sheep, and growing at the gaps in the fence, while the lambs keep up their bleating safe beneath their mothers…”

Nisus’ furor and un-Roman behaviour: “like a lion driven mad with hunger and ravening through pens full of sheep, dumb with fear, while he growls from jaws dripping with blood as he mauls and champs their soft flesh.”

Eurylaus’ death: “like a scarlet flower languishing and dying when its stem has been cut by the plough, or like poppies bowing their head when the rain burdens them and their necks grow weary.”

Nisus’ reaction to Euryalus’ death: “whirling a sword like lightning”

Helenor falling in battle: “like a wild beast trapped in a dense ring of hunters; it rages against the steel, and with full understanding it hurls itself to its death by springing on to the hunting spears…”

Turnus killing Helenor: “like the eagle... seizing in his hooked talons a hare or the white body of a swan and soaring into the air with it; or like the wolf of Mars tearing a lamb out of the sheep pen…”

The Trojans forcing back Turnus and the Rutulians: “crowding him like a packs of huntsmen with levelled spears pressing hard on a savage lion; the lion is afraid and give ground, but is still dangerous… his anger and his courage forbid him to turn tail…”

Book 10 -

The council of the gods: “like the murmuring of a storm when the breeze is caught in a wood and the rustling rolls through the trees unseen, warning sailors that winds are on their way.”

Ascanius: “like a gem sparkling in its gold setting, an adornment for a head or neck, or like glowing ivory skilfully inlaid in boxwood or Orician terebinth…”

Aeneas’ return to the Trojans: the “flames” of his armour was “like the gloomy, blood-red glow of a comet on a clear night, or the dismal blaze of Sirius the Dog-star shedding its sinister light across the sky and bringing thirst and disease to suffering mortals.”

Pallas in battle: “Just as a shepherd fires a wood at different points when the summer winds get up at last, and suddenly all the flames merge in the middle to make one bristling battle-front of fire stretching over the broad plain…”

Aeneas’ anger in battle: “like Aegaeon, who they say had a hundred arms and a hundred hands, with fire flaming from fifty breasts and mouths…”

Mezentius killing Orodes: “Just as a ravening lion scouring the deep lairs of wild beasts, driven mad by the pangs of hunger…”

Mezentius’ height: “as tall as Orion who walks in mid-ocean cleaving his path through its deepest pools with his shoulders rising clear of the waves…”

Aeneas and Lausus: “Just as when the clouds descend in a sudden storm of hail, and all the ploughmen and… workers in the fields scatter across the open ground and the traveller finds a sure fortress to hide in under a river bank or the arch of some high-vaulted rock till the rain stops falling…”

Book 11 -

Pallas’ body: “like a flower cut by the thumbnail of a young girl, a soft violet or drooping lily, still with its sheen and its shape, though Mother Earth no longer feeds it and gives it strength.”

Anger amongst the Latins: “as when rocks resist a river in spate and the trapped waters eddy and growls while the banks on either side roar with the din of the waves.”

Aconteus’ death: “like a thunderbolt, or a rock hurled from a catapult, scattering his life’s breath into the breezes.”

The Trojans advance into battle: “As the sea advances wave by wave, now rushing to the land, throwing foam over the rocks… now turning and hurrying back…”

Camilla and her companions: “They were like the Amazons of Thrace whose horses’ hooves drum on the frozen waters of the river Thermodon when they fight around Hippolyte… or when Penthesilea, daughter of Mars, rides home in her chariot and her army of women… exult in a great howling triumph.”

Camilla attacking Anus: “as easily as the sacred falcon flies from its crag to pursue a dove high in the clouds, catches it, holds it, and rips out its entrails with hooked claws while blood and torn feathers float down from the sky.”

Venulus is brutally attacked by Tarchon: “just as when a tawny eagle has seized a snake and flown up into the sky, winding its talons round it… the wounded serpent writhes in sinuous coils… the eagle never stops tearing at it…”

Arruns after killing Camilla: “As when a wolf has killed a shepherd or a great ox, and goes at once to hide high in the trackless hills before the avenging spears can come to look for him…”

Book 12 -

Turnus’ passion for battle: “Just as a lion in the fields round Carthage, who does not move into battle till he has received a great wound in his chest from the hunters, and then revels in it…”

Lavinia’s beauty: “As when Indian ivory has been stained with blood-red dye, or when lilies are crowded by roses and take on their red…”

Actor in battle: “like a bull coming into his first battle, bellowing fearfully and gathering his anger into his horns by goring a tree trunk and slashing the air… as he rehearses for battle.”

Turnus sees Aeneas leaving the battlefield: “Just as Mars, spattered with blood, charges along the banks of the icy river Hebrus, clashing sword upon shield… as he stirs up war… Thrace roars to its fullest reaches with the drumming of their hooves… Rage, Treachery and the dark faces of Fear…”

Aeneas returns to the battlefield: “Just as when a cloud blots out the sun and begins to move from mid ocean towards the land… the slaughter of their crops and destruction everywhere…”

Juturna disguised as Metiscus: “like a black swallow flying through the great house of some wealthy man… collecting tiny scraps of food and dainties for her young…”

Aeneas pursues Turnus: “like a hunting dog that happens to trap a stag in the bend of a river or in a ring of red feathers… the stag is terrified by the ambush… now he seems to have him… but he is thwarted…”

Aeneas’ artillery: “Like a dark whirlwind it flew carrying death and destruction with it.”

65 Virgilian Similes are in the Aeneid