Georgics and the Aeneid

Virgil started working on the Georgics right after he published the Eclogues, and started his work on the Aeneid when he was finishing up the Georgics. His four Georgics were basically instructional agriculture books. The first one is how to use the weather to your advantage and how to protect the crops when that's not possible. The second and third books are about actual crops and livestock. The fourth book is about bee keeping and how to encourage the insects to help the garden, and what dangers there are with bee keeping. Virgil's Aeneid is 12 books long, and is thought to be a sequel to Homer's story the Iliad. Before he finished the story, he traveled to visit Augustus Caesar to show him the work he had gotten done on the story. However, on the trip to other cities to work on the Aeneid, he caught a disease and died before he could complete the Aeneid. It is said that he ordered it to be burned, but his friends added in some details and edited the work some so the story could be completed. Virgil's best work wasn't even completed when he died, and people still thought it outdid Homer's Iliad.