She Was Degraded By The Aeniad, She Was A Powerful Queen Of An Important Kingdom (Carthage) And She Was

She was degraded by the Aeniad, she was a powerful queen of an important kingdom (Carthage) and she was a good one even so being under the mentoring of Juno (most important olympic godess); but as always Aphrodite's (Venus) shipping reflexes went a little to far, uniting her son (Aeneas) and her; reducing her character as another vapid women who decides to unalive herself and while doing so cursing Rome to be enemies of her kingdom. Rendering her character to a 2 dimensional charicature of her true self.

I apologize for using also the greek gods names, in my opinion Venus is in this part mostly Aphrodite's. Her syncretism with Venus (a roman fertility goddess) is still really recent in the Aeniad and to be honest is still very much her greek counterpart, in some parts she is Venus Generatrix but in Dido's tale she is still Aphrodite Pandemos. The Aeniad if you look really closely in it's structure is really similar to the Illiad and Odyssey and more obvious in it's final part, not mentioning the protaganists of this epic are Troyans.

So to sum this up, Dido was setted up as a really good character that lossed most of her agency after meddling with Aeneas.

Sorry for the ramble but is a pity what happened to her; if he could have been a bit more clever and set sailed with her, maybe nothing bad could have happened; founded Rome (not really, down the line Remulus and Remus where the ones, mostly Remus); then after settling move back to Carthage and supervise everything there, with a loving wife, a great kingdom and more.

But then we will forgetting that the Aeniad was written by Virgil as a foundational tale and Dido's role was to set up an excuse for the rivalry between Carthage and Rome (that will sublimmate in the Punic wars); so either way she is bound to lose because of the narrative, making her a tragic character to an unforgiving narrative.

this could be a very niche post but i mourn dido. she was a refugee who built a civilisation from the ground up!! she was a queen!! she was everything aeneas needed to be!! when we first meet her, she's compared to diana. diana goddess of the moon, diana goddess of the hunt. dido was so radiant and loving and warm, even without venus' fatal meddling, she opened her arms to the trojans and welcomed them to her land.

dido of carthage was such a powerful woman, she was the epitome of a person - she was pious, she was strong and she was so, so beautiful. venus ruins her. venus is a real villain of the trojan war and it does not get talked about enough‼️ yes the whole helen thing but cmon!! dido!! venus ruined dido's life - this rational, calm-headed woman is rendered a helpless victim to Love and its follies.

she believes her and aeneas to be married and then he just turns around and walks out on her. (I don't blame aeneas, i actually really like him. he too was a victim of the gods' whimsies - "I seek Italy not of my own will.") but it ruins her. aeneas has up and left and with it venus' interest in dido wanes but the arrow of desire remains stuck in her very soul, staining sticky red love all over her life.

when i think about dido's death i honestly get so sad because the last cry for help to diana when the priestess is performing the death rituals is just fucking heartbreaking. it's a jarring reminder of how dido used to be before aeneas, before the gods sunk their claws into her life.

beautiful dido, who glowed like the moon, now lies dead and burnt to ash on a pile of clothes and carvings of a man who never even loved her.

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