Written during the final decades of the first century BCE, Virgil's Aeneid is often celebrated as the masterpiece of Latin epic poetry. For centuries, it served as one of the principal narratives through which Romans understood their origins, justified their political institutions, and imagined their collective destiny. The Aeneid did not merely recount the journey of the Trojan hero Aeneas from the ruins of Troy to Italy. It offered Rome a coherent narrative that linked the

Walking through ancient cities with my books and notes in hand has given me some of the most rewarding moments of my life. Anatolia offers an extraordinary opportunity to observe the many cultural layers of history. To contemplate the Hittites, Carians, Lycians, Phrygians, Ionians, Persians, Romans, Byzantines, Seljuks, and Ottomans within the same geography is to witness that history advances not in a linear fashion but through accumulation. The fact that Anatolia has been h