DidoThere are two distinct stories of Dido ('wanderer'), queen of Carthage. It is generally believed that Virgil took a "quasi-historical tradition from the eighth century B.C. and moved it to the twelfth century B.C. to coincide with the events on which he based the Aeneid" (Bell, 164).
A summary of the version of Dido' story which takes place in the eighth century B.C. can be found in Robert Bell's Women of Classical Mythology. However, for the purposes of this website, the story that Virgil portrays, in which Dido was a contemporary of Aeneas, will be told.
According to Virgil, Dido was married to Sychaeus. Dido's brother, Pygmalion, murdered Sychaeus out of greed. The shade of Sychaeus appeared to Dido in a dream, and Dido fled from her homeland.
She arrived in the land which would then become Carthage. According to legend, Hiarbas, a king in the area near Carthage, agreed to let Dido buy as much land as she could cover with a bull's hide.
Dido then cut the hide into tiny strips, and with the strips surrounded a large area of land, which she called Byrsa, naming it from the hide of the bull (Bell, 164).
In the Aeneid, Venus tells Aeneas of Dido's flight from Tyre to Carthage.
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(IV.335) Tum Venus: "Haud
equidem tali me dignor honore; "Huic coniunx Sychaeus
erat, ditissimus agri "Ipsa sed in somnis inhumati
venit imago "His commota fugam Dido
sociosque parabat: "Devenere locos, ubi
nunc ingentia cernes |
Then Venus [said]: "But I confess I do not deem myself of such honor; the custom of Tyrian maidens is to wear a quiver, and to bind the purple hunting boot high on the calf of the leg. You see the Punic (Carthaginian) kingdoms, the Tyrians and the city of Agenor; but Libyan territories, the race invincible in war. The empire Dido rules having been driven from the city of Tyre, fleeing her brother. Long is her injustice, long are the details; but I will tell the highest chief points of things. "To Dido, Sychaeus was husband, richest in the land of Phoenicians, and beloved with great love of the miserable one, to whom her father had given her pure and had joined them with the best omens. But her brother, Pygmalion, crueler before all others in crime, held the kingdoms of Tyre. Among them (Sychaeus, Dido and Pygmalion) anger came in the middle. That impius one (Pygmalion) before the altars, and blind with love of gold, secretely overwhelms the unsuspecting Sychaeus with iron, heedless of the love of his sister; and the deed for a long time he hid, the evil one (Pygmalion) faking many things, makes sport of the heartsick loving [wife] with empty hope. "But the image of the unburried spouse (Sychaeus) itself came in her sleep, lifting up the pallid lips in strange manners, he laid bare the cruel altars and heart pierced with iron, and uncovered all of the dark wickedness of the house. Then he advises her to flee quickly and go forth from the fatherland, and to help her on her way reveals old treasures in the ground, and unknown amount of silver and gold. "Moved by these [words], Dido prepared her flight and her companions: they assemble, those to whom there was cruel hatred to the tyrant and fierce fear; they seized the ships, which chanced to be ready, and load the gold: the wealth of greedy Pygmalion is carried on the sea; a woman was the leader of the expedition. "They landed at the places, where now you will see huge walls and the rising citadel of new Carthage, and they bought land, [called] Byrsa from the name of the deed, as much as they could surround with a bull's hide." |
Aeneas, leaving from Troy, came upon Carthage.
In the Aeneid, Aeneas first catches sight of Dido as she arrives at a temple. Dido is described not only as beautiful, but she is also described as an active and fair queen, giving "orders and laws to men" and giving labor in "equal parts, or determined by lot." Under Dido's rule, Carthage flourished.
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(IV.496) regina ad templum, forma
pulcherrima Dido, incessit magna iuvenum stipante caterva. Qualis in Eurotae ripis aut per iuga Cynthi exercet Diana choros, quam mille secutae hin atque hinc glomerantur Oreades; illa pharetram fert umero, gradiensque deas supereminet omnes: Latonae tacitum pertemptant gaudia pectus: talis erat Dido, talem se laeta ferebat per medios, instans operi regnisque futuris. Tum foribus divae, media testudine templi, saepta armis, solioque alte subnix resedit. Iura dabat legesque viris, operumque laborem partibus aequabat iustis, aut sorte trahebat. |
The queen, Dido most beautiful in form, approaches toward the temple, a big throng of [male] youths crowding around. Such as on the Eurota banks or through the rides of Cynthus Diana exercizes her dancers, in whose followers a thousand Oreades (mountain nymphs) gather here and there; she carries a quiver on her shoulder and, walking, she towers above all the goddess': Joys thrill Latona's (mother of Apollo and Diana) silent heart: such was Dido, such she bore herself happily through the middle [of the crowd], and urging on the work and the future kingdom. Then at the doorway of the goddess' [temple], in the middle of the vault of the temple, protected by armed [men], and she sat up high, leaning on her throne. She gave orders and laws to men, and equalized the labor of the work in equal parts, or determined by lot. |
Dido took Aeneas and his tattered fleet in and listened to their story. Then, whether at the will of Aphrodite or not, Dido fell in love with Aeneas.
In the Aeneid, Virgil likens Dido in love to a wounded deer. Dido also neglects her duties to Carthage as a result of her love. Virgil writes:
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(IV.65) Heu vatum ignarae
mentes! Quid vota furentem, Uritur infelix Dido, totaque
vagatur Post, ubi digressi, lumenque
obscura vicissim Non coeptae assurgunt turres,
non arma iuventus |
O how blind are the minds of the soothsayers! How do sacrifices help one crazed in love, how do temples help? Meanwhile the flame consumes the soft marrow, and a silent wound lives under her chest. Unlucky Dido is consumed [with love], and through all the city, raving, she wanders, just as a deer when an arrow having been hurled [would wander], a shepherd hunting with weapons fixed it unaware among the Cretan grove at a distance, and [unaware] released the volatile iron; she traverses the forest and brush of Dictaen in flight; the lethal shaft clings to her side. Now she leads Aeneas with her through the middle of the walls, and shows the Sidonian wealth and the prepared city; she begins to speak, and resisted in the middle of her voice; now she yet again asks for the banquets the day having slipped away, and madly demands to hear the labors of the Trojans again, and she hangs again from the mouth of the narrating one. After, when [the guests] have gone, and the obscure moon in turn presses the light and the falling constellations urged sleep, alone in the empty house she mourned, and she, on the couches that he has left, reclines and separated she sees and hears that one missing; or Ascanius on her lap, charmed by the image of his father, she holds, and if [to see] whether she could deceive the unspeakable love. The towers which she had begun no longer rise, the youth do not train their arms, neither the gates nor the safe defenses prepare for war and the works hang interrupted, and the huge threatening walls and the machines [of war] equal to heaven. |
One day Dido, Aeneas, and a large group of people go out on a hunt. A storm commences and Dido and Aeneas both take refuge in a cave.
In the cave, an odd sort of marriage between Dido and Aeneas occurs, which Virgil describes below.
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(IV.160) Interea magno misceri
murmure caelum Speluncam Dido dux et Troianus
eandem |
Meanwhile the sky begins to be mixed with a great murmur; the rainstorm intermixed with hail follows; and the Tyrian companions everywhere and Trojan youth and the Dardanian grandson of Venus (Ascanius), scattered through the fields, seek shelter in fear; the rivers rush from the mountain. Dido the leader and the Trojan arrive at the same cave: and both primal Earth and Juno as the maid of honor give the signal; fires flash and heaven is a witness to the wedding, and nymphs wail from the summit of the cliff. That was the first day of her ruin and the first cause for sorrows; for she is not moved by her appearance or reputation, now Dido no longer thinks of her love as a secret: she calls it marriage; she hides her fault by this name. |
Aeneas, however, is instructed by the gods to leave Carthage so that he can fulfill his destiny. Rumor of Aeneas' departure flies about Carthage, and Dido confronts Aeneas, stating:
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(IV.305) "Dissimulare
etiam sperasti, perfide, tantum Nec te noster amor, nec te
data dextera quondam, Mene fugis? Per ego has lacrimas
dextramque tuam te Te propter Libycae gentes
Nomadumque tyranni Saltem si qua mihi de te suscepta
fuisset |
"Did you hope likewise, treacherous [man], that you would be able to conceal such a crime and stealthily leave from my land? "Does not our love hold you, does not your right hand (pledge), having been already given, hold you, does not Dido about to die in a bitter death hold you? Why even in the winter season would you prepare your fleet, and hasten to go to sea through the middle of harsh winds? What, if you do not aim for alien lands and strange homes, but if ancient Troy remained, would Troy be sought with your fleets through this billowing sea? "From me are you fleeing? Through these tears and your right hand (since I have left nothing else for my miserable self now), through our marriage, through the marriage having begun, if I deserved rightly what from you, or if there was anything sweet in me for you, to pity my sinking house and this - I beg you, if there is any place for my prayers till now - discard this resolve [to leave]. "On account of you Libyan races and Numidian tyrants hate [me], Tyrians are estranged; on account of the same you [my] reputation has been extinguished, and by which alone I was reaching the constellations [with immortal fame]. To whom do you desert me about to die, guest? Since only this name remains from your marriage. Why do I delay my death? Until brother Pygmalion destroys my walls, or Gaetulian Iarbus leads me as a captive? "At least if there had been for me any child having been born from you before your flight, if for me some small Aeneas were playing in the palace who might resemble you in the face afterall, so that I would not indeed seem entirely captured and deserted." |
When Aeneas finally departs, Dido is devastated and enraged. For Aeneas she had sacrificed her reputation and her kingdom, and for Aeneas she had given her love. Dido, seeing no where else to turn, decides to kill herself, as Virgil describes below.
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(IV.642) At trepida, et coeptis
immanibus effera Dido, Hic, postquam Iliacas vestes
notumque cubile "Dulces exuviae, dum
fata deusque sinebat, Dixit, et os impressa toro,
"Moriemur inultae,
It clamor ad alta |
But fearful, and Dido fierce with the huge things begun, turning her bloodshot eye, and her cheeks trembling infused with spots, and pallid because of the future death, she breaks into the inner-thresholds of her house and, frenzied, she climbs up the high funeral pyre and she unsheatheed the Dardanian sword, not sought as a gift in these usages. Here, after she noticed Illian garments on the famous couch, delaying a little with tears and a thought, she reclined on the couch, and she said very new words: "Dear momentos, as long as the fates and the god allowed it, take this spirit, and set me free from these cares. I have lived and I have acted out the course which fortune had given, and now the great image of me will go under the grounds. I have established a renowned city; I have seen my walls; I have avenged a man, I have exacted penalties from a harsh brother; happy, O! [I would be] too happy, if only the Dardanian keels had never touched our shores!" She spoke, and pressing her mouth to the bed, "We will die unavenged, but let us die," she said. "Thus, thus it helps to go under the shadows. Let that cruel Dardanian drink in this fire with his eyes from the deep, and let him take omens of our death with him." She had spoken; and also in between such words her attendants notice her, fallen in the middle on the sword, and the sword foaming with blood, and her hands stained. A shout rises to the high halls; Rumor flies wildly through the startled city. With laments and a groan and a feminine shriek, the roofs tremble: the thin air resounds with great wailings, not differently than if all Carthage or ancient Tyre were sinking in ruins with let-in enemies, and flames raging both through the roofs of men and turning through [the roofs] of gods. |
Most references have Dido meeting her tragic end atop a funeral pyre.
The curses Dido puts on the Trojans come true via the Punic Wars, which took place between Carthage and Rome (Hornblower, 467).
Edward Tripp writes that "Since Dido's other name, Elissa, and those of her husband and her sister, Anna, seem to be versions of Semitic names, it is likely that the story contains genuine elements of some Phoenician myth. It is believed by many scholars that Dido, and perhaps other characters in the story, were Phoenician divinities" (Tripp 201).