Dido: Queen Or Drama Queen?

Dido: Queen or Drama Queen?

In The Aeneid by Virgil, the protagonist Aeneas journeys from his fallen city of Troy to Hesperia, the place we now call Italy, to start a new city. Along the way he encounters Queen Dido, the founder and ruler of the city of Carthage. When Aeneas meets Dido he learns some of her history and how she came to be the ruler of Carthage. Meeting Aeneas affects Dido’s leadership and people in dramatic ways. Because of an affair the have together and the resulting drama, the question is raised as to whether or not Dido is a good leader. To determine if she was a good leader or not, I will examine her character and actions in the text The Aeneid.

When Aeneas first learns of Dido, it is from his mother the goddess Venus.

City building is no small task. It requires intensive planning, an organized labor force, and an immense amount of resources to build the city as well as feed, clothe, and house the workers building it in the meantime. In addition to building the city, the laws must be carefully planned out as well. When Aeneas arrives in Carthage, he sees all of these things taking place. “The Tyrians press on with the work, some aligning the walls,... some picking building sites and plowing out their boundaries, others drafting laws, electing judges, a senate held in awe,” (Virgil, 61). Dido is a good leader because she has the intelligence and skill required to plan out a city and organize a workforce to build it. She was able to get its future residents to cooperate in working towards a common goal. Dido is a good leader because she was able to start building a city from the ground up with no one to advise her, she did it with her intellect and ability to inspire her

Though she was a woman, she rallied her people together and led them out of the land controlled by her brother who betrayed her by murdering her husband for his money. She orchestrated the building of Carthage out of nothing, starting a city that would later go on to be a major world power and opponent of the Romans. She organized her people to work together to build Carthage, and she worked to make strategic alliances for the betterment of her people and to ensure her city’s safety. Although she had an affair with Aeneas, tarnishing her name and forgetting her people, then killing herself when he left her, she did these things only because of meddling of the gods. For these reasons, she was a good