Love And Loss: How Dido Reinforces Roman Greatness

“Wars and a man I sing — an exile driven on by fate”. So opens Rome’s great epic. A testament to Roman culture, history, values, and of course to the larger literary tradition established by Homer himself. Virgil heavily references both The Illiad and The Odyssey throughout his poem, and he opens with an allusion to both honor epic tradition and prepare his readers for his subtle references. Often these allusions have the intention of criticizing Greek culture and history in order that Rome looks grander and more honorable by comparison.

Virgil is rigorous in his contempt, and in addition to Greek ideals he turns his criticism towards Greek myths and their heroes. First among them is Ulysses —“Thanks to the jealous, forked tongue of our Ulysses — / you’re no stranger to his story”. Ulysses represents what Romans disdain, but Greeks exalt. He is creative, individualistic, and “complicated, ” and he has no Romanitas — discipline, duty, or self-control. Roman culture understandably discourages independence, which threatens their republic, but the contempt Virgil turns on Ulysses is shocking, especially from a man who admires Homer. However, in an attempt to honor and conserve Homer’s stories, Virgil more often turns his critical eye towards other characters, who have been portrayed in a manner like that of Greek heroes. Appearing briefly as Aeneas’s love interest, Dido seems to be an unlikely candidate, but she portrays the characteristics of many tropes from Greek literature — like the hero, the lover, and the siren. As the queen of Carthage, she earned her title by arriving in Northern Africa, a rich widow, and tricking the African tribes out of their land — “The Tyrians purchased land as / large as a bull’s-hide could enclose and cut in strips for size / and called it Byrsa, the Hide, for the spread they’d bought. ”

The story that earned her fame is about creativity, not about her awesome fate or incredible devotion. It’s not even her impact on Rome, which would have been founded with or without Dido. Roman heroes were praised for the part they played in Roman history — founding a city or winning a war. In that manner, Aeneas’s personal glory never comes before his destiny. Conversely, Greek heroes are often praised for their deeds — The Odyssey is about the man, not the war after all. Greek heroes like Ulysses, our “man of twists and turns, ” are also more likely to solve their problems with cleverness than with direct action. Dido’s inventive thinking and self-centric story are typically Greek traits; this vilifies her in the mind of a Roman reader. What a modern reader might call clever, Virgil finds contemptuous, and he emphasizes her trickery in his writing. Dido doesn’t just commit the deed, she names her city after it. Her tragic fall at the hands of Aeneas represents a larger theme, the just dominance of Roman civilization, especially over Greece and Carthage. By purchasing the city of Carthage with a bull’s hide, Dido may have earned the patronage of the goddess Juno, who’s sacred animal was the cow. Regardless, Juno favored Carthage, and in return Dido built her an awe-inspiring temple — “Queen Juno had lead their way to the fiery stallion’s head / that signaled power in war and ease in life for ages. / Here Dido of Tyre was building Juno a mighty temple, / rich with gifts and the goddess’ aura of power”. Juno’s temple is built on a “fiery stallion, ” and its walls depict the battle of Troy.

Virgil wants his readers to remember the Trojan horse, a gift made by Ulysses for his own patron goddess, Athena, and which ultimately led to the fall of the Troy. By connecting Dido and Ulysses, Virgil is able to rewrite the narrative of Troy. What was Roman defeat at Troy will be Roman victory in Carthage. After all, Juno’s temple is the place of Dido’s downfall; it’s here that Dido first meets Aeneas, who is destined to destroy her. Virgil is also criticizing the relationship between Juno and Dido, who is doomed by the actions of her own patron, and likewise criticizing many Greek heroes, who succeeded only at the will of divine favor. In contrast, Roman heroes, like Cincinnatus and Horatio, were “self-made. ” Dido is certainly clever, but her primary characterization is her passionate, though compelled love for Aeneas. Virgil writes, that Cupid “would go in place of the captivating Ascanius, / using the gifts to fire the queen to madness, / weaving a lover’s ardor through her bones. ” In addition to her lust, Virgil draws the reader to Dido’s madness, which causes unintended problems in her kingdom of Carthage. She says to Aeneas, “Thanks to you, the African tribes, the Numidian warlords / hate me, even my own Tyrians rise against me”. Beyond her own citizens, Dido has upset foreign suitors with marriage to Aeneas. Ulysses and Penelope meet a similar situation in Ithaca. Penelope’s dedication to Ulysses, even after 20 years, frustrates the suitors that persist in her household, causing domestic chaos. Ulysses’ extended stay with Calypso and Circe only exacerbates the problem. Dido’s suitors, which have no bearing on the poem’s outcome, are written to remind readers of The Odyssey. Dido’s madness is meant to shame her, but Dido’s accusation is meant to shame Ulysses, who left his wife in the company of frustrated suitors for twenty years, instead of for two or three months.

Dido and Penelope share frustrating suitors and a resolute dedication to a missing husband (dead and presumed dead, respectively). Virgil writes that Dido’s “heart had been fixed, dead set against / embracing another man in the bonds of marriage”. After the death of her first husband, Sychaeus, Dido still loves him, even in Hades. Unlike Penelope, however, Dido is swayed by Cupid’s magic and falls in love a second time. With Circe and Calypso, Ulysses does the same. Both stories end in reunion (another Greek trope), but unlike Ulysses, Dido must die before she can be reunited with Sychaeus. Virgil could be commenting on the flighty nature of women’s hearts, but considering other parallels between Dido and The Odyssey it seems more likely that Virgil means to criticize tragic love. Greek myth is filled with tragic love stories — Hyacinth and Apollo, Orpheus and Eurydice — and Romans preferred their myths of destiny and duty. In The Aeneid, Dido’s dedication to Sychaeus (and likewise tragic love in Greek cultural memory) is hollow. It has no significance and is easily overcome by Aeneas. Aeneas’s dedication to Rome, however, is something worth admiring. In this sense the Roman virtue again has usurped the Greeks, and again Dido is condemned by the perception of her actions through Roman eyes. Dido’s shame will soon be Rome’s victory. In addition to tragic love, Dido represents another classical trope — the foreign seductress. And who embodies this trope quite like Helen of Sparta? Virgil writes, “We tossed her some beach to plow — on my terms — / and then she spurs our offer of marriage, she / embraces Aeneas as lord and master in her realm. / And now this second Paris…”.

In the eyes of the the Trojans (ie the Romans), Helen, who was too tempting and too flighty, caused the Trojan war. By comparing Dido and Helen, Virgil trivializes Dido: she’s a distraction to Aeneas and a roadblock in the path of Roman destiny. Virgil also sets up the Punic Wars, a series of wars between Rome and Carthage that end in the annihilation of Carthage. The allusion is Virgil’s Petty !5attempt to rewrite Roman history. Then, the Greeks won and Troy survived. Now, the Romans have defeated Carthage (analogue to Greece) and left no survivors. It would be equally apt to call Aeneas “a second Ulysses, ” and compare Dido to the many sirens in The Odyssey: Calypso, Circe, and the Sirens themselves. Like Ulysses, Aeneas finds Dido distracting him from his objectives; Virgil writes that he is, “Building her gorgeous city, doting on your wife. / Blind to your own realm, oblivious to your fate!”

Unlike Ulysses, the reader knows what happens once Aeneas leaves. Dido’s fate is a sacrifice necessary to ensure the glory of Rome, but it is still tragic. Ulysses and his forked tongue are much more susceptible to temptation; he stays with Circe for one year and Calypso for seven, but his destination is less honorable. He is journey is separate from his destiny, and his homecoming is a personal desire. If this is Dido’s tragic end, what happens to Circe and Calypso? Ruthless, vicious Ulysses left so much tragedy his wake. By casting Dido as a siren, Virgil brings to light Ulysses’ carelessness and reinforces the comparative virtue of Aeneas (and then also Rome). Virgil characterizes Dido using established Greek literary tradition, casting her as a hero, a damsel, and a siren, in order to emphasize the shortcomings of Greek culture and the superiority of the Roman empire. He primarily alludes to Homer’s Odyssey, whose literary importance he references with reverence, but not without mocking Ulysses, who’s motivation is selfish and tragic, and who’s victory against the Trojans was merely temporary.

Virgil values discipline, duty, and self-control and he makes it clear that Ulysses, and by extension all of Greece, lacks these values. By shaming Rome’s rivals, he praises the Roman state, defends Aeneas’s actions and justifies the Punic Wars. Conversely, by creating parallels between Dido and the Greeks, he shames Carthage and Dido.