Aeneas: The Long Road

HBO Max Original Series

Troy fell. Rome waited. Between them: one man, the gods' attention, and a woman in Carthage who deserved better. A faithful, psychologically rich adaptation of the Aeneid — Virgil's foundational Roman epic — that treats Aeneas neither as simply heroic nor as Dido's callous abandoner, but as an extraordinarily complicated man caught between personal love and divine obligation in a way that destroys everyone involved. Three seasons cover the fall of Troy and the Mediterranean wandering (Season 1), the Carthage episode and its devastating aftermath (Season 2), and the Italian wars and Rome's founding (Season 3). The Underworld episode — in which Aeneas descends to meet his dead father Anchises and glimpse Rome's future — is the universe's most sacred sequence: Pluto and Proserpina receive Aeneas with the grave dignity their domain commands. Pluto neither performs menace nor displays resentment. He is the sovereign of a realm Aeneas has entered legitimately, through divine dispensation, and he treats the visit with the seriousness it deserves. S1E1 — The Fall of Troy Troy burning. Aeneas carrying his father on his back, his son's hand in his, his gods under his arm. The founding loss from which everything else follows. S2E6 — Carthage The full Dido and Aeneas arc. The love, the domesticity, the divine intervention, the departure. The series' most emotionally devastating episode. S3E12 — Roma Series finale: The wars concluded. The city's lineage secured. Aeneas dying having completed his task. The camera holds on the Tiber, the seven hills, the city that does not yet exist but will.

Story added by mr95 on August 17, 2026