My opinion

[Unregistered]

Maybe it was written to steer sympathy towards Dido but personally I feel not as much sympathy as everybody tells me I should. Actually, she seems very desperate and clingy and not too wise - if she's terrified of her brother coming to kill her, then she should marry one of the many chieftans that have proposed before, not pine over how without Aeneas she has no protection. She kills herself over love, calling it a madness and a frenzy. This is ludicrus! Especially since the Aeneid is meant to be a propaganda for Rome - would you write in the ancestor of the future leader of your country to be the child of a whiny, lovesick, desperate, mad, frenzied woman? Probably not.

[TK]

As the readers of this masterpiece know, Dido was unequivocally an example of the human death and suffering caused by the founding of a city. Yet, many may not be aware that Aeneas was one as well. He was forced by divine admonition into pursuing the new land for Troy (Italy). However, many continue to criticize him for choosing duty - which he was ordered into doing by the gods - over personal happiness. His reply to Dido in book IV aims to evoke a true sense of carelessness towards the 'infelix' queen, however Virgil has intended this pathos towards Dido to spark debate as to whether he really did care for her. People that believe he is a bad person havn't looked into this epic enough! (His first thought after deciding to leave Carthage was how he could tell the frenzied Dido.)