Dido

Dido, queen of the north African city of Carthage, is one of the most famous women from Rome’s mythic past. She is most well-known from the Aeneid, in which she plays a significant role for the first half of the poem as she gives shelter to the hero Aeneas and his shipwrecked crew, eventually falling in love with him until he abandons her to set sail for Italy. But rather than cover well-trodden ground, this chapter focuses on Dido’s exploits before her arrival in Carthage, as described by Pompeius Trogus: her marriage to Sychaeus, her betrayal by her murderous brother Pygmalion, her clever escape from her home-city of Tyre, and her deceptive initial acquisition of land in north Africa that would eventually grow into the massive Carthaginian empire. The Latin text enables readers to review the participles, ablatives absolute, and the perfect system of verbs.