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How Is Dido Portrayed In The Aeneid

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Queen Dido: The Tragedy of Gender When Queen Dido is first introduced in Virgil’s The Aeneid, she is portrayed as an independent, powerful political leader. While living in society where the ideal woman is the caretaker of the household and submissive to their husbands, Queen Dido is compared to the chaste, goddess of the hunt, Diana, who “moved / Amid her people, cheering on the toil / Of a kingdom in the making.” (Virgil, Aeneid 21:685-687) In other words, Queen Dido transcends the traditional role of a Roman woman and displays the masculine traits of a hunter-warrior and leader. These traits are lost, however, when Queen Dido succumbs to love and allows herself to be sexually ruled by and dependent on another masculine figure, which reflects the misogynistic view of Roman women being dependent on men. Virgil depicts this womanly subservience as a weakness, thus her suicide is not an act of nobility, but one of negligence and shame. …show more content…

According to Virgil, “was the first cause of death, and first / Of sorrow.” (Virgil, Aeneid 101:233) The union made in love transforms Queen Dido from the masculine hunter-warrior to a primitive creature that fulfills the desire of men, “like a doe / Hit by an arrow shot from far away / By a shepherd hunting in the Cretan woods.” (Virgil, Aeneid 97-98:96-98) Through this marriage, the Queen allows herself to be ruled by a man on the basis of gender and sexuality. She also discards her matriarchal rule over Carthage in neglect and patriarchal rule is assumed after the union when Aeneas is found “Laying foundations for new towers for new towers and homes.” (Virgil, Aeneid 104:354) The power, respect, and honor that Queen Dido once possessed as a warrior and leader vanishes with this union. Her independence and dignity is lost as she, in the perception of Virgil, devolves to a subservient female under control of a man, the dominant and revered

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