Comparison Of Dido And Cleopatra In Virgil's The Aeneid

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Dido and Aeneas were created as fictional characters in Virgil’s epic poem The Aeneid. It can be suggested that these characters were based upon true accounts of Cleopatra VII Philopator of Egypt and Mark Antony. In the final years of his life, Roman poet Virgil wrote the epic as Augustan propaganda, recounting the story of the founder of Rome, waylaid in his destiny by a beautiful, politically forward African Queen. In the epic, parallels can be drawn between both Queen Cleopatra and the fictional Dido, and between Mark Antony and Aeneas. It is not unreasonable to suggest some historical influence from Cleopatra and Antony on Virgil, as obvious allusions to Augustus Caesar’s victory are found and coupled with clear, if superficial, similarities
Virgil certainly empathises with Dido to some extent, setting her up as a just and competent ruler before falling under the madness of love. If Virgil did use Cleopatra as influence due to her threat to Roman rule, it is unlikely he would present her sympathetically, like a wounded deer, as is done in The Aeneid (Virgil, 2008). Comparisons of Dido with Cleopatra, are superficial at best, as Dido was not able to become a barricade to Aeneas as Cleopatra became to Antony (Scholla, 2009). Significantly, The Aeneid was pro-Augustan propaganda, so perhaps Aeneas and his pietas was used to represent the Caesar, not Antony. Suggestions from both ancient Roman poet Propertius and modern scholar Professor L. Fratantuono, allude to the fact that Aeneas is a representation for Octavian, later Augustus Caesar, for whom the Aeneid was written (Propertius)(Fratantuono, 2013). Other suggestions include Dido certainly represented Rome’s major foreign enemy, Carthage, whereby Dido acted merely as a symbol for Carthage and Aeneas for Rome, acting as an allegory for the Punic Wars (Losnes, 2011)(Smit, 2005). This is supported by Dido’s dying curse placed upon Aeneas and his city, calling for an avenging spirit to rise up from [her] bones, which can be read as a prophecy of Hannibal. Dido’s death could also be taken as symbolic of Carthage’s complete destruction in 146BCE (Losnes, 2011) (Kluth, 2010). Virgil fills The Aeneid with allusions to significant events of the Roman timeline, specifically those that threatened Roman posterity, such as the Battle of Actium. So it is reasonable for a reader – Roman or modern – to read the characterisation of Dido as merely another allusion to a significant event on the Roman timeline, not a character with noteworthy basis on

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