Cheshire Lecture: Aeneas and Dido

The question over whether Aeneas and Dido are married is less important for their particular story than it is for Rome and the impact the uncertainty has on its early development. In Vergil’s epic, Aeneid, the relationship between Aeneas and Dido helps form the protective institution of marriage that lends stability and sustainability to Rome. As the goddess of marriage and childbirth, Juno’s anger at the Greeks, especially the Trojans, for being passed over as the most beautiful goddess, will finally be allayed. The suggestion, then, is that Aeneas, whose life as the son of Venus is complicated, is an epic hero who does carry over his mother’s significance, for no empire can last that is not animated by love, but he is not literal and Venus is somehow transformed in the translation. Focusing on the final meeting between Aeneas and Dido in the underworld of Book 6, we will try and trace whether we can see any deepening in Aeneas’s character, and thus any seeds of Rome.