To: Classical Collectors
This is the second in our series on paintings with classical content.
Today we look at a scene more from legend than history, in the city of Carthage in north Africa, set about 1200BC. It’s from the story of Dido, recounted in Books I and IV of the epic Roman poem The Aeneid by Virgil (70-19BC) about the mission and travels of Aeneas, an ancestor of the Romans.
The story of Dido and Aeneas is one of the most famous episodes in Roman literature.
'Dido Building Carthage’ by J W M Turner
Picture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dido_building_Carthage#/media/File:Turner_Dido_Building_Carthage.jpg National Gallery image https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/joseph-mallord-william-turner-dido-building-carthage Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dido_building_Carthage
THE PAINTING
Description The painting is quite a lush, rich scene of a city under construction on both sides of a river, in the morning, with the sun brightly yellow and some way up in the sky. There are several buildings, some complete and some half-built, amid trees and cliffs in the background. On the left bank are various people, and near the viewer in the foreground is Dido, the queen of Carthage, tall and in a long dress, one of the focal points of the picture. Other figures may represent other people in the legend of Dido: the figure in armour in front of her may be her lover Aeneas; the figure by the boats may be Aeneas’ son Ascanius/Iulus; and the white building on the right may be the tomb of her husband Sychaeus. Interpretation The scene is calm and constructive. The building is proceeding well. It is nearing the end of a working day and all is peaceful. However, the viewer familiar with the story of Dido knows that there are difficult days ahead, which gives the scene a poignancy, knowing that Dido’s grand ambitions for the city and herself will soon be greatly challenged. Alternative title: Turner gave it the secondary title The Rise of the Carthaginian Empire; and created a partner painting ‘The Decline of the Carthaginian Empire’, which shows a similar scene at the end of a day. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-the-decline-of-the-carthaginian-empire-n00499 Painter: The painter is J M W Turner (1775-1851), the celebrated and innovative figure of the early 1800s, famous for his swirling impressionistic images of weather and movement, which were very ground-breaking for their time. Alongside the impressionistic images, he painted much more conventional direct paintings of urban scenes, such as ‘Dido Building Carthage’, in the style of Claude Lorrain, a French painter of the 1600s, who was Turner’s main artistic model among the Old Masters: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Lorrain . This painting: J M W Turner painted this picture in 1815 and exhibited it at the Royal Academy in 1817, but thereafter kept it privately at his home, for the rest of his life. He bequeathed it to the nation, on condition that it was exhibited in the National Gallery alongside certain other paintings (he actually changed his requirements about which paintings should be adjacent). Turner attached great importance to this painting. He described it has his ‘chef d’oeuvre’ (masterpiece) and at one point expressed the wish to be buried wrapped in the canvas ! Where is it now ?: It is in the National Gallery, as Turner requested. CLASSICAL CONTENT The Story of Dido and Aeneas In a scene from legend, the picture depicts Queen Dido, also known as Elissa, supervising the construction of the new city of Carthage on the coast of north Africa. Dido is a commanding figure: a good, just, compassionate leader, beautiful and intelligent. The scenario is most famous for what happens next. It depicts a time before certain momentous events occur. It is a grand and still moment before a storm. Queen Dido had been the ruler of the city of Tyre, Phoenicia (modern Lebanon); and had been married to Sychaeus, a rich nobleman until he was killed by her brother Pygmalion. Dido fled westward in the Mediterranean and settled with some of her people on the north coast of Africa. The local king Iarbas gives her some land to build a city, which she proceeds to construct. (Iarbas gave her as much land as could be contained in the hide of a cow, so Dido had a cow’s hide cut into very thin strips, which then encompassed quite a large area of land.) In due course, it will become the important city of Carthage. The painting may be set at this point. Soon after, Aeneas, a prince of Troy, arrives on the north Africa, with a band of followers. The city of Troy was sacked and destroyed by the Greeks at the end of the legendary Trojan War (which some ancients dated to 1184BC); and Aeneas escaped, sailing to the west, in line with various prophecies, in order to found a city, which would be the future city of Rome. At this point, he had already been searching for the right place, which the gods would reveal to him, for several years, and had already experienced various calamities and much distress. Aeneas is shipwrecked and lands in north Africa (little does he know that the goddess Juno, who is opposed to the Trojans, has sent the shipwreck to prevent them from founding a new city). He wanders around the city under construction and marvels enviously at how the work is progressing: he says ‘They are so fortunate, for their walls are already rising’ (‘o fortunati quorum iam moenia surgunt’). At this point, he meets Dido and there is quickly a deep mutual attraction: she is noble, generous and beautiful; and he is likewise noble, strong and a good leader. She invites Aeneas and his men to the palace and asks them to recount the terrible stories of the sack of Troy (including the Wooden Horse) and their later fruitless travels around the Aegean, Adriatic and Mediterranean seas. In the words of Aeneas: ‘Queen, you command me to renew unspeakable sorrow’ (‘infandum, regina, iubes renovare dolorem’) and ‘I myself saw these most unhappy events and was a major part of them’ (‘quaeque ipse miserrima vidi, quorum pars magna fui’). (These two Latin lines are famous and much quoted.) After some time, they both fall deeply in love and forget their respective duties: for Dido, to build her new city; and for Aeneas, to seek the place to found his city. Instead, they simply spend time enjoying each other’s company. The painting may also be set at this point. It’s all going very well and happily, until the gods intervene, and Jupiter, king of the gods, sends Mercury, the messenger of the gods, to remind Aeneas of his duty to travel on and found a city. This effectively wakes Aeneas up and he realises he does have this duty and must move on. He starts to make preparations to leave the city, which Dido senses; and they meet, where Aeneas explains he must leave because of his duty. Aeneas sails away and, overcome with distress, Dido builds a funeral pyre and throws herself onto it. Aeneas sees the smoke from the pyre from his ship; and as she dies, Dido pronounces a curse of enmity between her people and Aeneas’ people. And so the story of Dido and Aeneas ends. Dido perishes; and Aeneas sails on. He goes to Sicily, then up the west coast of Italy to the mouth of the Tiber which the gods finally reveal as the site for his city. He settles there and over three hundred years later, Romulus builds the city of Rome on the same site, traditionally in 753BC, from which year the Romans counted their calendar. The meaning of the story The above is a very dramatic, colourful and tragic story. It has become known as one of the great tragedies in European literature and has been depicted in the opera ‘Dido and Aeneas’ by the English composer Purcell in the 1680s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dido_and_Aeneas You can see a statue of Purcell off Victoria Street, near St James’ Park station: https://www.londonremembers.com/memorials/henry-purcell-statue The first play by Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593), a contemporary playwright of Shakespeare, was ‘Dido, Queen of Carthage’: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dido,_Queen_of_Carthage_(play) The most famous re-telling of the story is in the epic Roman poem ‘The Aeneid’ by Virgil (70-19BC), which follows the travels and exploits of Aeneas, the ancestor and ultimate founder of Rome. The poem is made up of twelve books, each about 800 lines long: Book 1 tells of Aeneas’ arrival in north Africa; then Aeneas recounts respectively the sack of Troy in Book 2 and his later travels in Book 3; and Book 4 tells the story of Dido and Aeneas’ relationship. In The Aeneid, the story of Dido and Aeneas plays out and represents two important themes. (The legends of Aeneas and Dido had existed long before Virgil, and he will have re-worked and re-tuned them to highlight the themes of his poem.) (Theme 1a) the actual, historical conflict between Rome and Carthage. These were two actual cities which grew in the mid-first millennium BC to be the two dominant powers of the western Mediterranean by the 200s BC, occupying large tracts of land: respectively Italy and north Africa. (Wiki on Carthage: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carthage ) They were directly north and south of each other across the Mediterranean sea, as you can see in this map: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_Rome_and_Carthage_at_the_start_of_the_Second_Punic_War.svg As happens with superpowers, they began to encroach on each other’s territory and a power struggle began to escalate. While they could perhaps have lived equitably alongside each other; in colloquial terms, they were both power-hungry and wanted to be top dog and so the western Med was not big enough for both of them. A Roman politician called the Elder Cato used to conclude his every speech in the Senate with the words: ‘Carthage must be destroyed’ (‘Carthago est delenda’). In the end, there were three extended wars between Rome and Carthage between 264 and 164 BC, known as the Punic Wars. (The adjective ‘Punic’ means ‘Phoenician’ since the Carthaginian people had come from Phoenicia, modern Lebanon.) The Second Punic War from 218-201BC involved the famous episode of Hannibal taking elephants all the way from Africa to Italy, through Spain, France and over the Alps. There followed a series of devastating battles in Italy which nearly brought Rome to defeat; but the battle of Zama in 202 BC in north Africa brought final victory to the Romans. The Third Punic War of 149-146BC largely involved Rome besieging and then sacking and destroying the city of Carthage, thus removing it from history. As one can see from the above, there was deep and long-running enmity between Rome and Carthage; and Carthage stood in the way of Rome’s long term expansion as an imperial power. This is what the story of Dido and Aeneas alludes to: that two cities were founded about the same time, but Rome had a strong destiny settled by the gods, and Carthage could not stand in the way of it. The story also creates a legendary cause for the enmity: the curse of a wounded lover. There are also minor hints about the conflict to come: the opening passage of the poem says that Carthage was a city ‘opposite Italy’ (‘Italiam contra’) but the Latin word ‘contra’ also means ‘against’ in terms of conflict; and the image of the smoke rising from Dido’s funeral pyre is an intimation of the final sacking of Carthage in 146BC. The overt message in The Aeneid supports Rome’s political history is that: Rome had a major destiny to rule the world, to which Carthage was an obstacle, so it was fair and right for Aeneas to abandon Dido and sail on to Italy. But there is a widespread view that The Aeneid also subtly critiques Roman political ambitions by highlighting the suffering involved for many people. In the story of Dido and Aeneas, in their happier days together, the poet Virgil may be subtly messaging that it did not have to end in conflict, but Rome and Carthage could have been partners and allies in real history. At one point in Book IV, Dido proposes that Aeneas unites his city and people with those of Carthage and perhaps Virgil is hinting that alliance would have been a better way forward ? (Theme 1b) The victory of Rome over Egypt. The story also alludes to Octavian/Augustus’ victory over Cleopatra in 31 BC: Cleopatra was also a queen in north Africa. In the mid-first century BC, Rome had become involved with Egypt, which was very attractive to the Romans both as a country of great wealth and as the main supplier of corn to the Mediterranean. The queen, Cleopatra VII, was in political difficulty, and sought alliance with Rome, through two love-relationships, the first with Julius Caesar and the second with Mark Anthony. Octavian (later Augustus) and Mark Anthony were allies who grew apart to become rivals and then enemies, effectively splitting the Roman world between the Latin-speaking West and the Greek-speaking East. The tensions culminated in the sea combat The Battle of Actium of 31 BC, which was won by Octavian. Cleopatra and Mark Anthony committed suicide; and Octavian became master of the whole Roman world. He also made Egypt a province of Rome and become its direct governor. The story of Dido is ostensibly about Carthage, but it would certainly have reminded contemporary Romans of their recent triumph over Cleopatra, a queen in north Africa who threatened to undermine Rome, and who also dramatically killed herself. (Theme 2) the story depicts symbolically how Romans valued duty and were wary of emotion The story clearly depicts the triumph of duty (‘pietas’) over emotion, in particular strong feelings (‘furor’ in Latin). Aeneas and Dido follow their emotions and neglect and forget their duties to found cities. The gods reminds Aeneas to follow his duty, and he abandons his relationship with Dido; while Dido, consumed by painful emotion, moves into self-destruction. Nowadays people tend to interpret the story of Dido and Aeneas through a modern lens, which places great value on romantic love and less on duty: we read the story in personal terms – that Aeneas abandons Dido, resulting in pain and tragedy for Dido. Because of our culture, we are naturally sympathetic to Dido and see Aeneas as hard-hearted and unfeeling, and possibly opportunistic in using Dido. However, it’s highly unlikely that Virgil would have entirely meant the story of Dido and Aeneas in this way: to depict his hero as profoundly relationally incompetent and/or heartless – humanly weak, yes, but not deeply selfish and unkind. Rather, the Romans probably viewed the story in a very different way. They valued duty, in particular to family and country, and were suspicious of emotion. As a result, they are likely to have interpreted the story as a warning about the dangers of emotion: that it came close to de-railing Rome’s destiny, since both Aeneas and Dido had out of human frailty succumbed to emotion, but fortunately the gods intervened and Aeneas got back on course in pursuing his destiny. Aeneas is depicted as pretty level-headed at the end of the relationship, which the Romans would possibly have commended; whereas Dido hugely loses self-control in an outburst of self-destruction – and the Romans may have read this as a warning about where emotions can take you, if unchecked. A major theme of The Aeneid is the importance of duty (‘pietas’) and the main character is frequently called ‘dutiful Aeneas’ (‘pius Aeneas’). In contrast, unchecked emotion and passion (‘furor’) is seen as destructive and dangerous. While Dido is a major character in the first half of The Aeneid, in Books 1 to 4; in the second half, an equivalent major character, Turnus, a prince of the Rutulians, exhibits the same lack of self-restraint, in his case leading to military calamity for his people. (This demonstrates that Virgil/the Romans saw ‘furor’ as a condition likely to beset both men and women, though probably seeing men as more likely to succumb to unbridled anger and women to emotional upset, in both cases leading to poor judgement.) And yet …. the Roman reading above is very cool and calculated. Surely even duty-bound contemporary Romans would have had some sympathy with the plight of Dido, who acted in good faith, but was abandoned ? And isn’t the behaviour of Aeneas questionable – he knew he had a destiny to fulfil but became relationally involved with someone in a way probably incompatible with that destiny ? (A counter-argument is that he was exhausted from his travels and distress, had lost faith in his mission and gave in to his emotions). Again, (as above on (1) in terms of Rome and Carthage), it’s quite likely that, with Dido and Aeneas, Virgil ostensibly sets out a traditional on-message story noting the importance of Rome’s destiny, but underneath he sprinkles a set of questions and doubts. He may have been saying: look at all the suffering created in the onward march of Rome’s rise; is it fair how we have treated other nations ?; Rome destroyed Carthage in the same way that Aeneas/the gods destroyed Dido. We have one intriguing insight into ancient response to the story: Augustine, the theologian, a great writer and general supporter of the Roman Empire who lived around 400AD, famously wept over the fate of Dido. Was this about her human loss, or about the price paid for empire ? More likely it was the former, because by 400AD, culture had moved on and was more focused on the personal than on nation and duty – Augustine wrote the first modern-style, self-sharing autobiography, Confessions. A final twist in all this is that Virgil did not complete The Aeneid. He worked on it for ten years, and was planning to spend three more years revising and finalising it, but he died. So, we don’t know what his final version would have looked like. If we every find part of The Aeneid unsatisfactory, the explanation may be that the text had not been fully worked through by the author. Perhaps he would have adjusted the story of Dido and Aeneas ? Personally, I think more insight into the thoughts and motivations of Aeneas in his encounter with Dido would help with interpreting: there isn’t much information to go on. More generally, and this is a major point, I feel the character of Aeneas throughout The Aeneid is fairly two-dimensional, which is a serious problem, given that he is the central character in the Aeneid overall. He is very dutiful, he embarks on long travel and suffers a lot – but he doesn't have a clear, distinctive personality. I think this is part of the problem with the telling of the story of Dido and Aeneas: Aeneas is not a well-developed character, so it’s difficult to understand how he thinks and acts, and so to get proper traction in interpreting the episode. In contrast, Dido is a well-developed, three-dimensional character, and Virgil draws on heroines of Greek tragedy to depict her. Virgil had a lot of heroes in epic and tragedy to draw on, so it’s puzzling that he didn’t give Aeneas a more distinctive and life-like personality. Virgil was probably portraying Aeneas as a model of an ideal Roman: selfless, enduring, following his destiny – which are also ideals of Stoic philosophy which was popular among Romans – but that does not necessarily make an interesting dramatic character. ` Overall, the story of Dido and Aeneas is much more open to interpretation than a first reading perhaps suggests; and readers of The Aeneid have been debating what Virgil was really getting at for hundreds of years. As with many good works of art, at the end of the day, the meaning is somewhat ambiguous, enabling readers to draw different ideas from it. MORE CLASSICAL BACKGROUND The Aeneid
The Aeneid is the greatest epic poem in Roman literature, written by Virgil (70-19BC). It gives an account of the travels and exploits of Aeneas, an ancestor of the Roman people, who escaped Troy after it was sacked by the Greeks at the end of the Trojan War, and was guided by the gods to found a new city in the west.
Virgil wrote The Aeneid as a commission from the emperor Augustus (who ruled 31BC to 14AD). The poem is generally seen as supportive of the destiny of Rome as a great imperial power, but many believe it also asks questions about the suffering and cost involved in the process.
In literary terms, The Aeneid is modelled on the two great epics of ancient Greek literature: The Iliad and The Odyssey. The travels in the first half of The Aeneid mirror The Odyssey; and the battles in the second half mirror The Iliad.
The Aeneid is generally very readable for a modern person, and to pursue further the topics in this article, I’d recommend reading Books 1 and 4 of the Aeneid for the story of Dido and Aeneas. If you would like to know more, you could read Book 2 on the fall of Troy and Book 3 on Aeneas’ travels by sea. Each book is about 800 pages long, which is about 25 pages in a modern translation.
Books 1 to 8 can all be read individually. Books 9 to 12 are more of a unit; and since they largely cover battles, they are probably of less interest to some readers.
Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeneid
Recommended translations:
It's really up to you which style of translation you prefer. The Ruden and Bartsch versions are highly acclaimed - the Bartsch version has just been published.
prose version by David West Very natural English prose https://www.amazon.co.uk/Aeneid-Penguin-Classics-Virgil/dp/0140449329
poetry version by Sarah Ruden. Light, limpid style https://www.amazon.co.uk/Aeneid-Vergil/dp/0300151411/ref=asc_df_0300151411/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=310953066705&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=13492143165648244947&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9045892&hvtargid=pla-561934341747&psc=1&th=1&psc=1 poetry version by Robert Fagles Fluid, quite heroic ton https://www.amazon.co.uk/Aeneid-Penguin-Classics-Deluxe/dp/0143105132/ref=pd_sbs_8?pd_rd_w=0rxC0&pf_rd_p=23e3a524-6afb-419f-99c8-323a4db4b472&pf_rd_r=SQQRV1TPT8259A0WK783&pd_rd_r=1552974a-7428-41fb-a906-c9d98e04777d&pd_rd_wg=MF1ig&pd_rd_i=0143105132&psc=1 poetry version by Shadi Bartsch Modern, natural language https://www.amazon.co.uk/Aeneid-Translated-Shadi-Bartsch/dp/1788162676/ref=asc_df_1788162676/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=430861189837&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=13492143165648244947&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9045892&hvtargid=pla-919268638264&psc=1&th=1&psc=1&tag=&ref=&adgrpid=101598703138&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvadid=430861189837&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=13492143165648244947&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9045892&hvtargid=pla-919268638264
The Original Version of the Story of Dido
Virgil constructed The Aeneid from various pre-existing legends and added some new stories, bringing them all together in a whole.
There was a legend that Aeneas the Trojan had come to Italy and been an ancestor of the Romans, but there wasn’t much material: Virgil wove a great deal more in to the story.
The story of Dido was originally completely separate from that of Aeneas. She was a bold, pioneering leader who led some of her people from a tyrannical rule in Tyre in Phoenicia and settled in north Africa, founding Carthage (which means New Town). To avoid marriage to a local king, Dido kills herself, so that her people can remain independent. But the Trojan prince Aeneas is not part of the story.
For more detail see this blog How Virgil Framed Dido by Prof Edith Hall, King’s College London, one of the UK’s foremost classical Greek scholars.
Edith Hall is giving a talk on this subject on 13 May 2021 at 7.30pm which you can view here: https://classicalassociation.org/events/newell-classical-event-st-johns-college-cambridge-professor-edith-hall-on-how-virgil-framed-dido/
Carthaginian Civilisation
Carthaginian civilisation is one of the great lost cultures of the ancient world, largely because it was obliterated by the Romans. There is still much archaeological material, of course, but it had a rich literature, of which none has survived. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Carthage
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