Dido's Suicide In The Book One Of The Aeneid

Suicide in the Roman society also was viewed as a tool of control. An example of this would be Cato the Younger, who would obtain his freedom through his death. There were many suicides that were viewed as a conscious intentional act and none of them consist of a mental imbalance or illness, although, there were there were individuals that did commit suicide due to their psychological problems, but those were often viewed as dishonorable deaths. There are many ways to commit an honorable and quick death. A few would be cutting open an arterial vein; an individual could also use a sword, dagger, or poison. On the other hand for the individuals who are old or ill, they would chose to stave to death. If one would try to commit suicide by hanging

There are variouys reasons for Dido’s suicide. In book One of the Aeneid, we see a bit of Dido’s past. We see that she is married to a rich man in Tyre named, Sychaeus. This all ended when her brother Pygmalion, who was the King of Tyre, has Sychaeus killed because of Pygmalion’s own greed. Then we see Sychaeus come back from the dead to warn his wife, Dido, about what had happened and that she should flee from Tyre. Dido then makes a vow never to love anyone ever again besides her husband, Sychaeus. Later on we see that vow begin to crumb due to the interference of the gods, but it crumbs nonetheless. Dido Travels to Carthage and meets Aeneas. Later down the Line Venus makes Aeneas look irresistible and Amor fills Dido with a burning love for Aeneas. Dido begins to tell her sister, Anna, about how she wants Aeneas, but she wants to remain faithful to her dead husband Sychaeus. Anna says something along the lines of what do the dead care about someone being faithful and it would be good to have an alliance with the Trojans. Soon after this happens Juno makes a storm and traps Aeneas and Dido in a cave and that is when they make love. With that being done Dido vow to not love anyone besides her husband is broken. Jupiter hears about this and sends Mercury to break this up and get Aeneas back on track to

“In secret, and you should never imagine I did. Nor have I ever proposed marriage to you o reentered into any nuptial agreement.” A man should never say this to a woman. This was the breaking point for Dido. “And now Dido, in awe of her doom, prays for death.” Dido at this point in time is just at her lowest and she realizes that there is no point to live because her honor is lost. She fell in love and slept with Aeneas after she promised that she would never love anyone regarding her husbands death. As stated before, “One’s honor was more important than one’s own life.” With this being said Dido decides to plan her own death. She then tells her sister to start a pyre to burn all of Aeneas’ things that he left behind. Dido exclames, “It will do me good to destroy every reminder of that evil man- as the priestess told me.” She made it seem as if she was doing all of this to rid everything of what Aeneas owned, but she was really planning her own suicide. In a sense one could say that Dido’s own body was a reminder of what happened so, she could have also committed suicide for that reason. It says in the Aenied line 752 book 4, “The sight of the familiar bed and the clothes he wore made her stop in tears.” One could say it was because of the bed in which she lost her honor and it was upon that bed is where she would lose her life. Richard says, “As Aeneas and Dido were once united in the bed by the