W. A. Camps expresses this common analysis of Virgil when he writes, "There is more than one reminder in the poem that its hero Aeneas is ancestor of Octavian through the supposed descent of the Julii [i.e., Octavian's family] through Aeneas' son Julius."

Like their medieval predecessors, Renaissance authors drew inspiration from earlier writers. More significantly, the spread of printing, slow increase in literacy, and the development