Written between about 42 and 35 BC, "The Eclogues" (also called the Bucolics) is the first of the three major works of the Latin poet Virgil. "The Eclogues" is a remarkable achievement of Virgil’s late twenties and shows that the poet, even at this early age, intended to develop a style distinct from those of his Greek and Roman predecessors. The ten-poem collection falls into three major categories: Theocritean, non-Theocritean and the Daphnis poems.
Virgil invites the reader to bear witness to life in “Arcadia,” a place created by poetry, an idealized rural scene where people live in harmony with nature.