Did Mercury build the ship of Aeneas?

For the Romans, Mercury held some particular narrative and socio-cultural implications during the First Punic War and was connected to a nexus of thought with specific resonance during a markedly naval conflict. An underappreciated testimonium of Naevius’ Bellum Punicum (c.220 bce) suggests that he crafted aversion of the god who built Aeneas’ ship and led the hero from Troy to Italy. This understanding of the god’s maritime role in the epic and its literary afterlives are traced out in later texts and objects in order best to reconstruct a largely lost characterization of the god in Roman culture. Focusis given to Naevius, Vergil, Silius Italicus, Marcellus of Side, and the visualnarratives found on the Augustan Tabula Iliaca Capitolina.