Archeologia epica della ‘nave-città’ (in margine a Virgilio, Aen. 5, 119)

The phrase urbis opus that Virgil uses to describe the ship Chimaera in the ship race of Aeneid 5 draws upon a nexus of cultural and literary ideas connecting the ship to the city. By means of the ship race, especially by having things end badly for the Chimaera, Virgil expresses specific ideological themes fundamental to the Aeneid. This article undertakes also a systematic study of ships in the Aeneid, paying specific attention to Aeneas’ own ship (Aeneia puppis) in book 10. The poem’s mythic Homeric context lends itself to being interpreted through the political and monumental context of Augustan Rome, especially through the propaganda that surrounded the battle of Actium, and the ‘ship of Aeneas’ that was later seen in the Navalia by Procopius.