What does it mean to know what a work of fiction tells us In Vergils Aeneid the promise and uncertainty of fama convey this challenge. Expansive and flexible the Latin word fama can mean fame longlasting tradition and useful news but also ephemeral rumor and disruptive scandal. Fama is personified as a horrifying winged goddess who reports the truth while keeping an equally tight grip on whats distorted or made up. Fama reflects the ways talkor epic songmay merge past and present human and divine things remembered and things imagined. ampampnbsp Most importantly fama marks the epics power to bring its story world into our own. The cognitive dynamics of metaphor share in this power blending the Aeneids poetic authority with the imagined force of the gods. Characters and readers are encouragedeven impelled to seek divine order amidst unsettling words and visions by linking new experiences with existing knowledge. Transformative moments of recognition set the perceptual stage both for the gods commands and for the epics persuasive efficacy for pietas remembrance of ritual and social obligations and furor madness. ampampnbsp Antonia Sysons sensitive close readings offer fresh insights into questions of fictive knowledge and collective memory in the Aeneid. These perspectives invite readers to reconsider some of the epistemological premises underlying inquiry into ancient cultures. Drawing comparisons with the nineteenthcentury English novel Syson highlights continuities between two narrative genres whose cultural contributions and rhetorical claims have often seemed sharply opposed.