Virgil

Aeneas fleeing Troy, traveling the Mediterranean World, and winning land in Italy to found Rome
I spent a month intermittently reading this translation. I had often quoted the first line "Arma virumque cano" when showing off my small Latin knowledge, and decided I needed to actually read the epic. Robert Fagles produced this translation in 2006, so the vocabulary is modern, and is easily read. I have a volume with the classic translation of John Dryden, and tried previously to read that version, without success.
The story opens with Aeneas and his Trojan ships wrecked on the shore of Carthage by a storm commanded by Aeolus, at the urging of Juno. Aeneas relates his tale at a banquet held in his honor by Dido, the queen, who falls madly in love. Aeneas requites the love, and is thinking of settling with Dido with his Trojans, but is warned in a dream sent by Jupiter to follow his destiny as the founder of Rome. He sails from Carthage, and Dido is a suicide. Aeneas is again grounded by a storm in Sicily, where his father Anchises dies. He finally arrives in Italy, after losing his pilot Palinurus, and traveling to Hades to meet his father, who shows him the glories of future Rome. The Trojans construct a fortified camp at the mouth of the Tiber, and Aeneas offers friendship and asks to marry Lavinia, a princess of the nearby Latins. A powerful champion of the Rutulians, Turnus, also desires Lavinia, and decides to attack the Trojans while Aeneas is upriver negotiating with the Etruscans. He returns with Etruscan allies to relieve the seige of the Trojan camp. A bloody battle among Trojans, Latins, Etruscans and Rutulians ends in single combat with Turnus. Juno, who had schemed against the Trojans throughout the poem, finally agrees to Jupiter's command to allow Aeneas and the Trojans to found their city, as long as the city speaks Latin and absorbs the Trojans. The end comes when Aeneas kills Turnus, rejecting pleas for mercy because Turnus was wearing a belt that Aeneas had given Pallas, his dear friend.
Bernard Knox writes a learned introdction to Virgil, the Rome of Augustus Ceasar's time. It contains a brief summary of the poem. He also contributes end notes. There are 17 fine reproductions of frescoes from Pompeii inserted in the relevant passages of the volume.
Vivid and bloody descriptions of battles, many heros named and killed, Gods sending their messengers and demigods to do battle or scheme against the protagonists, it read like a modern fantasy novel.

I marked some passages.
Book 1, lines 887-896
... Then Iopas,
long-haired bard, strikes up his golden lyre
resounding through the halls. Giant Atlas
had been his teacher once, and now he sings
the wandering moon and laboring sun eclipsed,
the roots of the human race and the wild beasts,
the source of storms and lightning bolts on high,
Arcturus, the rainy Hyades, the Great and Little Bears,
and why the winter suns so rush to bathe themselves in the sea,
and what slows the nights to a long lingering crawl.

Book 4, lines 219-223
Straightway Rumor flies through Libya's great cities,
She thrives on speed, stronger for every stride,
slight with fear at first, soon soaring into the air
she treads the ground and hides her head in the clouds

Book 6, lines 306-311
On they went, those dim travelers under the lonely night,
through gloom and the empty halls of Death's ghostly realm,
like those who walk through woods by a grudging moon's
deceptive light when Jove has plunged the sky in dark
and black night drains all color from the world.

Book 9, lines 218-223
'Euryalus'
Nisus asks, 'do the gods light this fire in our hearts
or does each man's mad desire become his god?'
For a while now a cravings urged me on
to swing into action, some great exploit --
no peace and quiet for me....

Book 10 lines 880-881
Grim repose and an iron sleep press down his eyes
and seal their light in a night that never ends… (mehr)