The Aeneid, written by the Roman writer Virgil in the first century BCE, contains the famous story of Aeneas of Troy and his adventures after the end of the Trojan War. In many respects, this is the Romans’ answer to Homer’s Odyssey. One of the most famous parts of the story is the interaction between Aeneas and Princess Dido of Carthage. However, did these two figures ever actually meet each other? Or is Virgil’s story just a fiction?
Who were Aeneas and Dido?
First, let us establish who these figures were. Aeneas was a prince of Troy. His father, Anchises, was a first cousin of King Priam. Aeneas first appears in Homer’s Iliad. Although a fairly minor character in that story, Homer has Poseidon observe that Aeneas will become the king of the Trojans one day.
Later legend, written after Homer’s time, portrays Aeneas as leading the Trojans to Italy and founding a new kingdom there. This is the story of the Aeneid, but this basic idea is seen at least as early as the fifth century BCE, and likely as early as the sixth century BCE if we look at Etruscan material.
Princess Dido of Carthage was similar to Aeneas in many respects. She, too, was from a royal family from the Near East. She was originally a princess of Tyre, a powerful Phoenician city-state in Lebanon. According to legend, she was driven away from her home.
Like Aeneas, Dido then became a leader in her own right, founding a new settlement far away from her homeland. This settlement was Carthage, in modern-day Tunisia on the north coast of Africa.
The romance between Aeneas and Dido in the Aeneid
With these basic facts out of the way, what does the legend of Aeneas and Dido found in Virgil’s Aeneid actually say? Dido’s husband, Sychaeus, was treacherously murdered by Pygmalion. Dido fled and founded Carthage. Then, after the fall of Troy, Aeneas and his men arrived in the area and met Dido.
From there, a romance grew between Aeneas and Dido. They fell in love and had an intimate relationship, although they never officially married according to Aeneas. Eventually, Aeneas had to leave to continue on his divinely-directly journey. This broke Dido’s heart.
As a result of this, Dido committed suicide by setting up a pyre under the pretense of burning everything that reminded her of Aeneas. As she did this, she cursed her former lover and foretold that there would always be enmity between the Carthaginians and the Trojans (who would go on to become the Romans).
The chronological issue with this legend
The first obvious reason why many people argue that this story is fictitious is that Virgil was writing many centuries after his tale was set. However, there is an even bigger reason why many argue that this cannot have a historical basis.
According to the ancient Greeks, the Trojan War occurred in the twelfth century BCE. On the other hand, ancient writers were in general agreement that the founding of Carthage occurred in the eighth or ninth century BCE. The chronology of Dido is fairly secure, since she is part of a dynasty that can be anchored both forward and backward in time. Some of her ancestors were contemporaries of Biblical kings who can be dated independently, through Biblical chronology.
Obviously, if Aeneas and Dido lived centuries apart, then they could not have met each other. Due to this chronological issue, many argue that the story simply must be fictional.
Chronological controversy
On the other hand, there are many reasons to believe that the ancient date of the Trojan War should be brought forward by several centuries. For example, many of the genealogies of people who were supposed descendants of participants in the war would indicate a date several centuries more recently than c. 1200 BCE.
Egyptologist David Rohl is one of the scholars who argues for this revision on the date of the Trojan War. With the aforementioned genealogies in mind, David sees the Aeneid as actually providing even further support for his revised date of the fall of Troy.
According to him and several other scholars, the Trojan War actually occurred in the ninth century BCE. Therefore, Aeneas and Dido really would have been contemporaries. This, in turn, means that they really could have met each other.
What the earliest evidence shows
However, for any argument to have substantial weight, it surely needs to accommodate the earliest evidence available. As it happens, the Aeneid actually contradicts the earliest evidence concerning Dido and her chronological relationship with the Trojan War.
There are records from centuries before the time of Virgil which refer to when Carthage was founded in relation to the fall of Troy. Notably, these records do not make them contemporaneous. Rather, they actually place the fall of Troy about sixty years after the founding of Carthage. Since Dido was the one who founded Carthage, and she did this after already having been married, this would make her an elderly woman by the time Aeneas fled the ruins of his city. In fact, it is unlikely that she would have even still been alive.
Additionally, there are many records specifically about the legend of Dido which predate Virgil’s Aeneid, in some cases by several centuries. In these, Dido is presented as being chaste and entirely faithful to her late husband from Tyre. They do not mention Aeneas, nor is there any room for him in the accounts. Therefore, the earliest evidence is completely inconsistent with Virgil’s legend of Aeneas and Dido meeting each other.
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