Tag: Vergil

Was Dido real?

Our evidence for early Carthage, and thus for Dido, is limited. Vergil provides the earliest extant text and his work is heavily overlaid with myth and legends. Could there have been a Dido (a.k.a. Elissa, probably from the original Phoenician Elishat) who led the Phoenicians from Tyre to found the “new city” (in Phoenician, Cart Hadasht)?

Ancient history certainly points to such a possibility, as there were a number of powerful queens whom the Romans encountered (well, more they tended to come into conflict with them — the Romans did not always play nicely with their neighbors) as well as many others documented in history. Here’s a page with just a few. Pay particular attention to Cleopatra.

To learn more about these and others, you can also visit an on-line catalogue of warrior women, political leaders, and other distinguished women, alternatively some not very nice ones on Queens of Infamy, and also on one of my favorites: Rejected Princesses.

Dido’s Playlist

In Vergil’s Aeneid, Dido had a doomed affair with Aeneas, which ended in her death. But what if she survived? How would that impact history? This is a question I ponder in my (not-yet-published) novel. And this is a playlist to go with that alt-myth in which she not only survives, but triumphs (in order of emotion). Shout out to my colleague, Ben, for his suggestion of Blank Space. For  Vergil’s original version, the playlist works through “Bad Blood” then can skip to “Look What You Made Me Do,” only what Aeneas made her do in The Aeneid is very different than what she does in my novel.