There are many reasons to love Virgil, but one that fits my personal bent is the echo of the Near East. These are present in Homer as well, of course -- not just in terms of formulae and phrases he shares with previous Near Eastern works, but in his references to Egypt, Phoenicia, etc. However, the Phoenician Dido/Elissa plays a large role because she founded Carthage and Virgil's Rome was still reeling from its defeat of Carthage (a terribly insufficient parallel is how Americans will still mythologize WWII long after we've forgotten there even was a Korean Wear).
Dido captivates me likely for the same reason as Inanna: she is a heroine of ancient mythology that remains well-known (as well as Greco-Roman mythology and its Near Eastern antecedents are known these days). Her story is tragic, an indictment against the Greco-Roman gods, and a stirring narrative of passion to which we can all relate. It's not really a story of love, though. It's those damn meddling gods, after all. If we set aside their involvement, Aeneas and Dido both look worse (Aeneas is a timid womanizer; Dido is an obsessive bitch). So, it doesn't really work to try to read it as a love story or a story of heartbreak. Still, if we see Book IV as being on some level Virgil's commentary on the matters of the heart, I'm guessing that someone special snapped ol' Virgil's heartstrings something fierce (quid uota furentem, quid delubra iuuant?).
In the main channel of the Western Canon, Virgil's raft takes Aeneas from a minor Homeric character to Rome's founding hero. Aeneas becomes the Roman reflection of and response to Theseus, Orpheus, wily Odysseus, etc. He himself points this out when he calls upon the Sibyl and the gods to grant him passage to the Underworld like other god-kin have been allowed.
However, while I'm unsure if this was part of Virgil's intent, a recent re-reading of Book IV of the Aeneid raised in my mind a question about many curious parallels between the Phoenician Elissa as presented by Virgil's pen and Herakles. This is probably all just in my mind, but here goes:
1. Both Herakles and Dido were driven to terrible madness by the gods.
Herakles of course was driven mad by Hera, murdering his wife Megara and his children (a son and a daughter, I believe?). Iris, I believe, was the messenger sent to bring him Madness when Euripides told the tale. Despite this crime being initiated by a god, Herakles was still sent on his labors. He bore the guilt for a sin that wasn't of his own free will. Visiting Delphi, he was ordered to submit to his vengeful brother Eurystheus (who, by fiat of Hera, usurped Herakles' throne at birth).
Dido was driven mad with love by Venus, breaking her sacred vow to never know another man's body since the murder of her husband. Cupid was sent to entrance her so that she would only have eyes for Aeneas, and this passion caused her to neglect her regal duties, and eventually become outright obsessed with cursing Aeneas and his descendants. Out of grief, she even took her own life. Beyond this, by cursing Aeneas' descendants to war with her own, she was dooming Carthage to its final fall at the hands of Rome. She even has a vengeful brother figure waiting in the wings: Pygmalion of Tyre, who usurped Dido's rule by killing her husband (or, as the accounts also have it, being her joint heir but taking the throne despite being younger). Oracles play a part in her story as well: sacred offerings gushed blood and turned black, evidence of her guilt for breaking her vow.
2. Both died upon a pyre of their own making.
Herakles, poisoned by centaur blood, constructed his own pyre and begged for a bystander to burn him alive (so he wouldn't, presumably, be committing suicide).
Dido likewise constructed her own pyre, but did in fact set about to take her own life upon it. She was therefore guilty of suicide, perhaps, except that Juno intervened and had Iris deliver to the final blow (so to speak). Therefore, like Herakles, she engineered her death but someone's hand freed her spirit.
3. Both had an association with Hera/Juno.
Herakles perhaps means "glory of Hera" (evidencing a possible connection to Hera that predates the myths where she is his foe) or "glory through Hera" (which also seems possible given that by Hera's cruel deeds Herakles made a name for himself).
Likewise, Virgil presents Dido as intimately connected to Hera/Juno. Juno loves Carthage more than any other city (a fact that would have surprised Homer). Here we have a contrast, of course. Juno works to preserve Dido, trying to negotiate a marriage between Aeneas and Dido that would save Carthage. When Dido's agony at death is prolonged (it's not her time to die), it is Juno that releases her, sending Iris to clip Dido's hair for Proserpina.
4. Both had failed second marriages.
Herakles of course was put into torment because his wife unwittingly gave him a cloak dipped in centaur blood. Dido was put into suicidal torment because Aeneas, unaware of the meddling of the gods, broke her heart when he announced Jupiter had ordered him to seek Italy.
The second wife of Herakles bore a name that, if I'm not totally wrong about this, meant "slayer of her husband" or something like that. Aeneas protested that he wasn't really married to Dido, but if we grant Dido's view of things (they slept together, lived together, he helped build Carthage's walls, etc.), Aeneas was the slayer of his wife in the same way that Herakles' last bride aided the hero's downfall.
5. Both gained kleos with their tragic lives.
With the Olympian-to-be Herakles, this is obvious. But Dido herself in Book VI takes some comfort near her death that her fame will live on: she has rescued her people, built a prosperous city, and lived a generally pious life.
On the surface, this connection seems unlikely. Herakles was a sexually-active hero who fought horrible monsters. Dido was by no means promiscuous or far-traveling save in her exile from Tyre to African shores. I don't want to overstretch things, as it's expected that even unrelated mythological figures will show the basic traits of a hero. For Herakles, his metis was show at the Augean stables and at Atlas's perch. This is not echoed by Dido's own -- such as her purchase of Carthage's land using an ox hide. Every Greco-Roman hero is clever to some degree, so it would be a stretch to find a connection there. Dido was not skilled in polemos -- she was a refugee queen, bravely rescuing her loyal subjects from her cruel brother. This, of course, makes her a kindred soul for pious Aeneas, abandoning Troy to save a remnant of his people.
However, the above connections (the first three being the strongest, if weak nonetheless) make me wonder if Virgil had something up his sleeve. Sure, Aeneas and Herakles have an obvious parallel: both are hounded by Hera/Juno; both have divine blood; both face monsters and are skilled at war; both enter the Underworld.
Still, with all the layers of the Aeneid, I wonder if part of Virgil's presentation of Dido was meant to cast her a tragic heroine not merely in the mode of an Antigone. Dido is a wanderer after all (like Odysseus), and cunning. She is a model stateswoman until the Trojans arrive with Venus hovering nearby.
Aeneas may strap on a lion's skin in Book II, but Dido lays herself out on a pyre after taking on guilt for something the gods engineered.
A further parallel, and I will admit this is offered only for curiosity's sake, is that the shade of Herakles and the shade of Dido both dwell in the Underworld. Despite the apotheosis of Herakles, Homer has his shade down in Hades to talk shop with the Ithacan. Dido's shade provides what Eliot called "the most telling snub" in poetry when Aeneas goes to talk with her.
I could write reams about the parallels between Aeneas and Herakles (now that I've mentioned apotheosis, especially). But I wonder if Virgil wanted his readers to note Dido's tragic end and connect it to another pyre-burnt, god-hounded, Hera-connected hero of the Mediterranean milieu.
This may just be ol' Theopacius reading too deep into things. I'm a 21st century post-post-modernist. I look for feminist interpretations of texts that don't denigrate the male figures. I'm cool with that. It's just how my culture has wired me.
