[T]he response, including the preference for particular works, varied from country to country and from individual to individual, depending upon political, social and even religious orientation. Virgil's texts, almost like the sortes Virgilianae of the Middle Ages, became a mirror in which every reader found what he wished: populism or elitism, fascism or democracy, commitment or escapism.

Virgil is the only pagan who takes rank with the Jewish and Christian prophets; the Aeneid is the only book, apart from Holy Scriptures, to contain sayings that are valid beyond the particular hour and circumstance of their day, prophecies that re-echo from the doors of eternity, whence they first draw their breath . . . For whether we like it or not, whether we know it or not, we are all still members of that Imperium Romanum, which finally and after terrible errors accepted Christianity sua sponte, of its own free will - a Christianity which it could not abandon now without abandoning itself and humanism too.