Florida State University Libraries

Honors Theses The Division of Undergraduate Studies

2015 Excusing Dido: An Analysis and Appeal to the Scholarship and Pedagogy of Women's Suicide in Antiquity Austin L. Ard

Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] 1

THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

Excusing Dido: An Analysis and Appeal to the Scholarship and Pedagogy of Women’s Suicide in Antiquity

“An even worse pain is the female who, as soon as she sits down to dinner, praises Virgil and excuses Dido’s suicide.” – Juvenal, Satire 6.434-5

By AUSTIN-LEE ARD

A Thesis submitted to the Department of Classics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation with Honors in the Major Degree Awarded: Spring 2015 The members of the Defense Committee approve the thesis of Austin-Lee Ard defended on April 24, 2015.

______

Dr. Timothy Stover Thesis Director

______

Dr. Allen Romano Committee Member

______

Dr. Jessica Clark Committee Member

______

Dr. David Levenson Outside Committee Member

Table of Contents

Introduction ...... 4

General Reception of Suicide ...... 10

How Many Suicides and Where ...... 11

Death as Something Inherently Female ...... 12

Methods Explained ...... 15

Weapons ...... 18

Hanging ...... 19

Jumping ...... 20

Poison ...... 22

Fire ...... 22

Motives Explained ...... 25

Dolor ...... 28

Desperata Salus ...... 29

Pudor ...... 30

Furor ...... 31

Inpatientia ...... 33

The Dido Tradition ...... Error! Bookmark not defined.

In-depth Analysis of Virgil’s Dido ...... 38

Conclusion ...... 83

Bibliography ...... 86

Introduction

Every 13 minutes a person dies by their own hand. According to the American

Association of Suicidology, for every one suicide, there are six survivors, people whose lives are affected by the death. Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States; homicide is

16th. Considering the 815, 090 suicides from 1988 through 2012, the number of survivors is estimated to be around 4.9 million.1 With statistics like that, there are very few people whose lives or the lives of those around them have not been touched by the act. As educators in the classroom, we have to be educated ourselves in recognizing warning signs and factors that put students at a higher risk for suicide, especially since we don’t know if by teaching this material we might bring up strong and delicate feelings concerning the subject matter as it pertains to our students’ personal lives.

Often our culture looks upon suicide as something sorrowful and in some instances shameful, but never to be valorized. Some churches condemn victims of suicide and assert that those who chose that path will never see heaven’s gates. Is suicide truly an inherent evil? Is it wrong in every single case? Is it a purely selfish act? In the first century CE, Pliny articulates the true complexity of the phenomenon:

But the chief consolation for nature’s imperfection in the case of man is that not even for God all things are possible – for he cannot, even if he wishes, commit suicide, the supreme boon that nature has bestowed on man among all the penalties of life. (Natural History 2.27)2

1 McIntosh 2 Van Hooff, xii 3 Van Hooff, xiii 4 Josephus, Jewish War, 3.5.8 (Niese sections 369-70) ἀλλὰ µὴν ἡ αὐτοχειρία καὶ τῆς κοινῆς ἁπάντων ζῴων φύσεως ἀλλότριον καὶ πρὸς τὸν κτίσαντα θεὸν ἡµᾶς ἐστιν ἀσέβεια. τῶν µέν γε 2ζῴων Van οὐHooff,δέν ἐστιν xii ὃ θνήσκει µετὰ προνοίας ἢ δι᾽ αὐτοῦ: φύσεως γὰρ νόµος ἰσχυρὸς ἐν ἅπασιν τὸ ζῆν ἐθέλειν: 5Martial, Epigrammata, 1.78.5-8 Nec tamen obscuro pia polluit ora veneno/Aut torsit lenta tristia fata fame, /Sanctam Romana vitam sed morte peregit /Dimisitque animam nobiliore rogo. Pliny describes suicide as a consolation and a boon, a beneficial thing. While the more

cynical critics in 21st century CE society might agree with this statement, ultimately it is at odds

with the perspective of the modern mindset. Even over 2000 years ago, this matter was a key

vexation of many philosophers and writers. Flavius Josephus fought reproaches that he himself

did not share in the collective suicide at Massada. In an apologia pro vita he argues that suicide

is a direct action against nature. 3

Suicide is alike repugnant to that nature which all creatures share, and an act of impiety toward God who created us. Among the animals there is not one that deliberately seeks death or kills itself; so firmly rooted in all is nature’s law – the will to live. (Jewish War 3.8.5)4

Even within a single author there could be a divide on the matter. Martial expresses

dismay in one instance and respect in another. When Festus stabs himself, Martial remarks, “He

did not however pollute his pious mouth with secret poison, or aggravate his sad fate by

lingering famine, but ended his pure life by a death befitting a Roman, and freed his spirit in a

nobler way.” (Martialis Epigrammata 1.78)5 But when Fannius commits suicide in an attempt to

escape death at the hands of the enemy, we read, “Now I ask you: is it not sheer madness to

expire in order not to die?” (Martialis Epigrammata 2.80)6 In the Greek world, suicide was

almost an obligatory last act for philosophers and intellectuals it was so respected. Anaxagoras

committed suicide at the age of 72, Aristotle at the age of 62, Diogenes at the age of 80, Epicurus

3 Van Hooff, xiii 4 Josephus, Jewish War, 3.5.8 (Niese sections 369-70) ἀλλὰ µὴν ἡ αὐτοχειρία καὶ τῆς κοινῆς ἁπάντων ζῴων φύσεως ἀλλότριον καὶ πρὸς τὸν κτίσαντα θεὸν ἡµᾶς ἐστιν ἀσέβεια. τῶν µέν γε ζῴων οὐδέν ἐστιν ὃ θνήσκει µετὰ προνοίας ἢ δι᾽ αὐτοῦ: φύσεως γὰρ νόµος ἰσχυρὸς ἐν ἅπασιν τὸ ζῆν ἐθέλειν: 5Martial, Epigrammata, 1.78.5-8 Nec tamen obscuro pia polluit ora veneno/Aut torsit lenta tristia fata fame, /Sanctam Romana vitam sed morte peregit /Dimisitque animam nobiliore rogo. 6 Martial, Epigrammata, 2.80.2 Hic, rogo, non furor est, ne moriare, mori?

71, and Pythagoras 82 just to name a few.7 One of the questions this paper will be asking is where a specific suicide, the one of Dido, falls on the ‘respect spectrum,’ why suicide is the only real option for Dido, and what factors led her to that conclusion.

Where an individual suicide falls on the respect spectrum depends on many factors including but not limited to the motives and the methods. Without an honest suicide note, it is impossible to deduce the true reason why a person would choose to end his or her life. Due to the lack of such notes from antiquity, we are left with guesses based on the logic of contemporary thought. Our interpretations of the motivations, while seemingly true, may not satisfy every instance. I would challenge the reader to approach the loved ones of a suicide victim and to explain to their faces why he or she chose an early exit to life. I would then not wish to make that person’s acquaintance for whom that task was easy or who was sufficiently satisfied with their judgment. This issue of dealing with the callousness with which we approach the topic of suicide is especially relevant for those teaching or publishing research on the matter. We can’t afford to live under the assumption that one of those 4.9 million survivors is not in our classroom or reading the research we publish. In large measure we are teaching and publishing this information for them and at least on some level we have to approach the subject that way. Even when dealing with suicide specifically in antiquity, part of our mind has to be devoted to suicide as it appears today.

It takes a focused and conscious effort, but we can’t afford to distance ourselves too far from those suicides in antiquity. At some level, we must treat ancient suicides with the same care and compassion we would treat those we have lost to suicide in our own lives. While we can categorize suicides according to a general motivation, in the back of our minds, it is imperative

7 Van Hooff, 36

that we recognize that there is more to it than meets the eye. There is a certain depth of the human psyche to be appreciated and recognized. Suicide is in part one of those things that you can’t begin to truly understand unless you have been around it or considered it yourself. And especially if you have been there, having come through the situation intact, you know that there are motivations unknown even to the person to whom they belong. That being said, it is also no good to sit back and only tell ourselves that we can never really know what was going through a person’s head thus concluding that there is no use wondering.

Based on external evidence we can find common motivations between similar suicides and use those motivations to examine the bigger picture of suicide as it occurs at a cultural level.

For it does occur at two different levels: suicide as it pertains to an individual and suicide as it appears when examining a particular society at a particular point in space and time. To have a firm grasp on the matter, or as firm a grasp as one can have, an examination of both must be made. To examine suicide at a cultural level, we can look to statistics and laws or philosophical treaties concerning the act. By doing this we notice patterns and trends that can reflect the problems in society felt at a personal level. It would be incomplete and rather cold to stop here at an overview. Each and every suicide is an individual act brought upon by events specific to the victim. Each person went through different experiences leading him or her to the conclusion that living was no longer bearable or possible like the forced suicides imposed under Nero and other tyrants. Because of this, it is imperative to examine suicide at a personal level. If we do not do this, we get swept away by cultural trends and lose focus on the heart of the matter – the individual’s pain. It is very easy to get swept away by those cultural trends in the case of women due to the fact that we have very little personal writing from they themselves and forget that they were also unique people with unique struggles. Especially in antiquity in societies in which the

voices of women are very much oppressed, it is important to not overpower what little voice they had with our perceptions of how they must have felt living as oppressed people.

We have a few cases in antiquity in which individuals express their reasons for once considering self-killing. Seneca when he was young and suffering from weak lungs, thought about taking his life but stopped only when realizing the grief his father would feel. St.

Augustine wrote about how after the loss of his best friend, ‘his soul’s half,’ an aversion to life, a taedium vitae, once dominated his mind.8 While Seneca was later forced to follow through and commit suicide under the orders of Nero, St. Augustine later spoke out against the act condemning it - two different outcomes to a similar wish. While I won’t go so far as to condemn suicide, I, like St. Augustine, bring my own personal experience with me when discussing the matter. In the following pages, I will focus on empassioned suicides and will be discussing specifically that of Dido.

There is a sense in the field of ancient gender studies that far too much distance is put between us and the women of the past. They were oppressed and we are not. I feel that because of this we often consider ourselves as scholars better than those figures we are studying, pretending as though because we recognize the oppression outright our opinions are more valid and our values as a society are far superior. It may show hyper-sensitivity on my part, but the following statement from Elise Garrison, who has contributed a great deal to the study of female suicide in antiquity - and much of what I have learned regarding the topic is dependent upon that research - strikes me as being a little bit too impersonal:

The physical and psychological dependence of females on males was so socially ingrained that the female personality and social function was only complete in its relationship to the male. It logically follows, then, that upon the loss of the male

8 Van Hooff, 5

authority, females may no longer perceive a societal role, and it is under such circumstances that suicide may occur. 9

Especially when dealing with such a delicate subject as killing oneself, my conscience will not allow me to put myself on a higher pedestal than any woman I would discuss for the sole reason that I have been born into a time that has an awareness of the concern for women’s rights.

I can’t pretend that I wouldn’t quickly put caring for my family far ahead of my social, academic, professional, or personal interests, should the need arise. I can’t pretend that I cannot identify on an extremely intimate level what it is like to sacrifice my own personal welfare for the sake of a man all in the name of love. I can’t pretend to not personally know on a much smaller scale the massive guilt that is associated with sexual violation. It’s uncomfortable to talk about, all of it is, but that in part is why it’s so important to do so. It’s further evidence of as to why studying ancient literature is so powerful. Because of the fact that someone thousands of years later is able to identify deeply on a personal level with feelings and emotions recorded and passed down generation to generation, it shows just how connected we are as humans throughout space and time. This is why part of this thesis will discuss certain risk factors, thought processes, and warning signs individuals considering suicide may exhibit. This research has been done specifically to deal with individuals in our current day, but some of the information is so basic and ingrained in human nature that it is not a far stretch to say that these things weren’t apparent in antiquity.

9 Garrison,"Suicide in Classical Mythology: An Essay”

General Reception of Suicide

In order to understand where a specific suicide falls on the respect spectrum, we must

first look at the general reception of suicide: how common were they in myth and real life, what

responses by a community were taken after a self-killing, and on what grounds is a death to be

judged? In antiquity there is a strong sentiment that how a person died dictates how they lived.

Emile Durkheim analyzed historical attitudes towards suicide by societies in his book Suicide, which according to Realino Marra and Marco Orru is a sociological classic due to the extensive literature evolving from it, especially after the 1951 English translation appeared.10 Durkheim claimed that there was a continuous increase in the social disapproval of suicide from antiquity to the present day, that a growing emphasis placed on an individual’s dignity and sacredness caused this increase in disapproval, and that the condemnation of suicide was essentially moral.11

Lydia De Novellis Spaventa tested Durkheim’s theory of anomic suicide as it pertained to the classical Greco-Roman world and concluded that among socially prominent Greeks and Romans, such as Themistocles, Isocrates, and Cato the Younger, suicide was not only frequent but also widely justified in both societies as philosophically and ethically sound.12 Durkheim had theorized, however, that there was always societal disapproval of suicide leading from ancient

Greece and Rome up to the present day as attested by the specific laws that sanctioned social conduct in respect to suicide.13 Marra and Orru suggest that Durkheim distorted the historical evidence to fit his evolutionary scheme because certain sanctions listed by Plato in Laws were

10 Marra Orru 273 11 Marra Orru 274 12 Marra Orru 274 13 Marra Orru 274

not actually practiced legal sanctions, but were only what he thought those sanctions should be.14

Even in Servius’ commentary on the Aeneid, in which he mentions that there was a religious

custom of refusing burial to those who had committed suicide, one must realize that this only

applies to those suicides carried out by hanging. Also this was a religious, not a legal custom.15

How Many Suicides and Where

The following is a chart depicting the recorded instances of suicide according to sources

from different time periods. In the mythical category, there are 125 recorded instances. In the

Archaic time period (740-500BCE) there are 38, in the Classical (500-336BCE) 78, Hellenistic

(336-27BCE) has 105, Early Rome has 13, the Early Republic (500-200BCE) has 39 cases of

suicide, the Late Republic (200-27BCE) has 164, the Early Empire (27BCE-192CE) by far has

the most with 255 cases, and then the Late Empire has 51 datable cases of recorded suicides.

16

14 Marra Orru 276 15 Marra Orru 277 16 Van Hooff, 12

Suicides in the first column are unique to the chart though, as they fall under the category

of mythology i.e. stories, which although mostly regarded by antiquity as occurring in the olden

days, are written and re-written throughout antiquity and therefore stand outside of a particular

point in time. Mythology allows us to see glimpse mindset of the ancient world as different

stories can be reshaped and retold to fit new needs and customs of a changing society. In an

adaptation of the story of Theseus and Ariadne, Plutarch has the princess commit suicide,

hanging herself out of grief once she has been deserted on Naxos as opposed to being offered

comfort by Dionysus, which is the more common version of the story.17 There is often only a thin veil between a myth set seemingly before the dawn of time and the contemporary culture that is telling it. Myths, however, differ from things like epitaphs and legal documents in that the purpose that they have for telling of a suicide is not simply to report its occurance. Instead they are focused on a grander picture that uses a specific act to make statements about the culture consuming the story. Myths are highly valuable in the study of a phenomenon such as suicide, because they represent a conscious effort to deal with it in a way that must make literary sense even if it does not make sound sense for those in reality.

Death as Something Inherently Female

Within the mythical category, there is a high representation of women committing suicide: 71 female against 51 male cases. This is not to be seen as a reflection on reality though, but rather a reflection on the grappling of the ancient mind with the complex and problematic nature of the female existence. Van Hooff says, “the life of man is less problematic; that is the reason why male suicide is less represented in mythology.”18 To take a binary approach, life is masculine and death is feminine. Femininity in classical culture represents something other,

17 Van Hooff, 25 18 Van Hooff, 21

often something eastern, something not Greek and not Roman. The classic example of the

Amazonomachy featuring Theseus at war with the Amazons can represent on the larger scale the

conflict between eastern nations and western nations or even conflicts between men and women.

Just like there are sharp contrasts between men and women or east and west, there are

contrasts between life and death. Life is something we are able consciously to experience. There

is vigor. There is heroic action. Achilles in Book 11 of the Odyssey says, “No, don’t seek to console me of my death, glorious Odysseus. I should choose, so I might live on earth, to serve as the slave of another, of some portionless man whose livelihood was but small, rather than to be lord over all the dead that have perished.” 19 Life is something to be desired, and death is something to avoid.

But why is death so ominous? It is partially because we as humans are prone to fearing the unknown. Death is something which we may never be able to fully understand. We, living, cannot ask someone who has died what dying and death is like. People may claim to be able to contact spirits. Homer has Odysseus making contact with the dead. This is but one example that illustrates the common feeling that death is dark and shrouded in mystery. Life is free to walk about in the sunshine. Like death, woman is a mystery. This is evident in the seclusion of the

Athenian woman to her quarters. Virgil also states this uncertainty of woman in Aeneid IV.569-

70, ‘Woman is always a changeable and inconstant thing’ (varium et mutabile semper / femina).

So if life is something certain and known, and death is something uncertain and unknown, life is masculine and death is feminine. For the male, death may be an easier pill to swallow if it is presented in the form of dead women in literature. Catharine Edwards writes, “Death as the limit

19 Homer, Odyssey, 11.487-491, ‘µὴ δή µοι θάνατόν γε παραύδα, φαίδιµ᾽ Ὀδυσσεῦ./ βουλοίµην κ᾽ ἐπάρουρος ἐὼν θητευέµεν ἄλλῳ,/ ἀνδρὶ παρ᾽ ἀκλήρῳ, ᾧ µὴ βίοτος πολὺς εἴη,/ ἢ πᾶσιν νεκύεσσι καταφθιµένοισιν ἀνάσσειν.

of cultural representation is readily associated with the multiply coded feminine body, which

itself defies understanding.”20 Because in these instances, death does not cross boundaries into the masculine realm, man can safely examine death in its state of being something ‘other.’

Greek medical doctors such as Hippocrates suggest another reason why death and suicide with the female sphere – women are biologically inclined to it. A text ‘About Maidens’ (Peri parthenion) comes to us under the name of Hippocrates. In it he explains the phenomenon that women are more inclined to hang themselves more often than men. Women, as he explains, are more prone to delusions due to their more sensitive nature which is known to be more ‘little- minded’ (athumotere kai ologotere). He goes on to say that virgins are of an even higher risk- group as their virginity withholds them from fulfilling their fate as women. Women are ‘bound to bleed’ he says. When the blood cannot find an exit, it accumulates near the diaphragm and heart putting pressure on vital organs. Due to this pressure, a fatal morbidity takes hold of the young women leaving them fascinated by death and highly inclined to throw themselves from on high or to hang themselves. As a cure for this mental illness he offers the following advice:

“Whenever girls suffer from these affects I recommend (keleuo) them to live with men as soon as possible.’21 It is a very Greek thought in ancient science that the predominance of one fluid, such as blood, causes highly adverse effects on people’s minds. In the female case, blood that does not aid in fulfilling the female fate darkens the mind.

20 Edwards, 12 21 Van Hooff, 21-2

Methods Explained

One contemporary strain of thought that must be avoided when discussing suicide in

antiquity is to consider suicide attempts as a cry for help. Today we might question if someone

truly intended to commit suicide or if they just desperately needed attention to be paid to their

problems.22 We have many means, especially if one considers the various prescription pills that

many people use, to make a calculated suicide attempt – that is someone could intentionally seek

suicide knowing that they could stop it or be stopped before things went too far. The ratio,

according to the American Association of Suicidology, of suicide attempts to success is 25:1.23

That is to say that the odds are so stacked against one who is trying to kill himself/herself that an individual could almost safely attempt the act and rely on a rescue. One might recall the scene from the movie Sabrina (1954) in which the title character attempts suicide through carbon

monoxide (CO) poisoning by running all the automobiles in the garage with the doors shut. The

amount of noise the cars make and the amount of time it takes to die from CO poisoning allows

for enough time to almost guarantee a rescue.

Suicide in the ancient world required much more intention and resoluteness in order to go

through with the deed. One would not venture into the matter expecting that there was the

possibility that they could change their mind at the last second. Even if a rescue attempt was

made, the methods used were so drastic that it was almost impossible. Xenophon describes in the

Anabasis a scene in which the Ten Thousand look on in horror and bewilderment as the

Armenian Taochians throw themselves – men, women, and children – from their fort onto the

rocks beneath. Aineias the Stymphalian, one of the Greeks, tries to save one of the men, but is

22 That is not to invalidate the pain of an individual who uses a suicide attempt as a cry for help. They are still in such a state that they must turn to an extreme form of self-harm and must be treated with the same care that one would treat any other who would seek out death. 23 McIntosh

tragically dragged along with the man he is trying to save.24 In the following quote by Seneca, he lists the various roads one can take to end one’s life.

In whatever direction you may turn your eyes, there lies the means to end your woes. See that precipice? Down that is the way to liberty. See you that sea, that well? There sits liberty – at the bottom. See you that tree, stunted, blighted, and barren? Yet from its branches hangs liberty. See that throat of yours, your gullet, your heart? They are ways of escape from servitude. Are the ways of egress I show you too toilsome, do they require too much courage and strength? Do you ask what is the highway to liberty? Any vein in your body.25 (Seneca, De ira 3,15,4)26

Van Hooff suggests that the opening of the veins is presented to be among the softer methods, which is almost opposite of what we would consider today. Even though there is a divide between present day and antiquity and we cannot pass judgments on the respectability of ancient suicides by today’s standards, the divide must be discussed if only to highlight the differences between contemporary and ancient thought on the matter. On the question of methods, we should note that for instance our medicine cabinet is full of far more means for accomplishing the deeds than was available for an ancient Greek or Roman, so therefore it is successfully carried out far more often by that means. Without delving into the controversial matter of firearm regulation, access to guns is perhaps on of the most important factors leading to successful suicides.

Below are two charts depicting the frequency of certain methods used by men and women in antiquity. Men used weapons most frequently by far with them representing 47% of the 439 cases in which methods have been specified. Hanging and jumping each account for

24 Xenophon, Anabasis, 4.7.13 25 Seneca, De Ira, 3.15.4, Vides illum praecipitem locum? illac ad libertatem descenditur. Vides illud mare, illud flumen, illum puteum? libertas illic in imo sedet. Vides illam arborem breuem retorridam infelicem? pendet inde libertas. Vides iugulum tuum, guttur tuum, cor tuum? effugia seruitutis sunt. Nimis tibi operosos exitus monstro et multum animi ac roboris exigentes? Quaeris quod sit ad libertatem iter? quaelibet in corpore tuo uena. 26 Van Hooff, 41

13%, poison and inedia 9% each, making these four methods popular, but not quite so popular as

weapons. Fire and provocation take 4% and 5% respectively making these the least used

methods out of the 7 possible ones.

In contrast, the category of weapons only accounts for 25% of the 158 cases for women,

but hanging accounts for 34% and jumping 22%. Hanging and jumping for women were far

more common than for men, whereas weapons for women is almost half of the percentage as it is

for men. The remaining categories – poison, inedia, and fire – are relatively the same frequency

as they are for men. Provocation, however, is an absent category for women as there are no

recorded cases of this method ever being used by a woman. This absence is not explained, but it

is not surprising.

Methods used by men in the 439 cases where these have been specified fire 19x provocaon 22x 4% 5% inedia 39x 9%

poison 40x 9% weapons 204x 47%

jumping 58x 13% hanging 57x 13% 27

27 Van Hooff, 44

Methods used by women in the 158 cases where these have been specified inedia 11x fire 7x 7% 4%

poison 13x 8% weapons 39x 25%

jumping 34x 22% hanging 54x 34%

28

Weapons

Suicide by falling on one’s weapon is the model of self-killing for heroes. This is most

exemplified in the death of Ajax whose death goes against the conventions of drama in antiquity.

He is not the only one however. Even Achilles is said to have considered, or been at risk of

considering, this heroic exit. Antilochos grasps Achilles’ hands when the death of Patroclus is

reported ‘for he feared that he might cut his throat with iron.’29

To contrast the most common methods between Greece and Rome, Rome wins by far in

number of suicides by weapons. Out of the 248 instances, Rome accounts for 153. A very

Roman practice, its popularity is evident in the inspiration of the many idioms and euphemisms

used by Tacitus: 30 “incising the veins, presenting the arm, letting blood by the veins; the veins

could be ‘interrupted,’ ‘cut off,’ ‘cut through,’ ‘furnished,’ ‘presented in order to get undone, and

28 Van Hooff, 44 29 Homer, Odyssey, 18.34 δείδιε γὰρ µὴ λαιµὸν ἀπαµήσειε σιδήρῳ. 30 Van Hooff, 51

‘struck.’”31 Surprisingly some people managed to survive this. Parthenios, an ancient doctor,

came across in his practice individuals who tried to commit suicide by slicing and stabbing: ‘I

saw people who intended to slaughter themselves and had already cut their throats completely;

they live, but have no voice, unless somebody closes the windpipe.’32

Especially in Rome, suicide by way of a weapon was a very masculine, noble exit to life.

Women only use weapons in exceptional circumstances in which they are most noted for their unfeminine behavior. There are seventeen cases of women against the 135 for men also achieving this manly recognition. Lucretia is the primary example of this. In later times, other women would follow her example. Mallonia was a second Lucretia as it were. She was brought to the bed of Tiberius but fiercely refused, causing him to turn her over to informers and put her on trial. He called out and asked whether or not she was sorry. Upon her return home from court, she stabbed herself and openly blamed the man for his obscenity.33

Hanging

There is much controversy over the respectfulness of the noose. In Euripides’ Helen, in the aftermath of the Trojan War, we find Helen in Egypt with the son of Proteus making unwanted advances upon her. All alone she contemplates death:

The best course is to die. How then could I die nobly? To hang oneself in mid-air is undignified Even among slaves it is unseemly While to stab oneself is not without honor and nobility And the moment when one shuffles off this life is a small consideration34 (Euripides, Helen, 298-303)

31 Inscisio venarum, praebere brachium, snguinem per venas mittere, venas abrumpere/abscindere/intercidere/porrigere/praebere exsolvendas/resolvere,venis ictum infere 32 Van Hooff, 48 33 Van Hooff, 50 34 Euripides, Helen, 293-303, (Trans. James Morwood), θανεῖν κράτιστον: πῶς θάνοιµ᾽ ἂν οὐ καλῶς; / ἀσχήµονες µὲν ἀγχόναι µετάρσιοι, / κἀν τοῖσι δούλοις δυσπρεπὲς νοµίζεται: / σφαγαὶ δ᾽ ἔχουσιν εὐγενές τι καὶ καλόν, / σµικρὸν δ᾽ ὁ καιρὸς σάρκ᾽ ἀπαλλάξαι βίου.

Helen’s reasoning is that opening the veins or stabbing is a quick end, while hanging is unsightly

to be beheld. It was considered to be an unclean death (me katharos thanatos). As such when

Odysseus returns and finds that his female slaves had been disloyal and had consorted with the suitors, he and Telemachus consign them to the noose. Hanging though was much more prevalent in myth than in real life with 38 historical cases out of a total of 115. Not in all mythical cases was hanging criticized. The deaths of Jocaste, Antigone, and Arachne are all marked by the method, but there is no talk of disapproval. There was no sense of the unaesthetic effect proposed by Helen.

R.J. Edgeworth notes that hanging is the canonical method of suicide for heroines in classical literature and in particular tragic queens.35 Overall hanging was considered to be the means a desperate person sought. Whenever an individual takes his reputation and public opinion into consideration, he chooses another means.36 As a tragic queen one might think Dido might have considered the rope, but she manages in her last moments to save face and achieve a more noble death. In Rome there was much outspoken disgust to the very vulgar practice of hanging.

Myths were even altered to reflect good taste. Seneca alters the fate of Jocaste and has her stab herself rather than hang as she does in Sophocles’ adaptation. Virgil chooses the noose as the means of death for the mother of Aeneas’ bride so as to picture her in a negative light by recourse to the ‘nodum informis leti’ (12.603), ‘the rope of ghastly death.’

Jumping

As with hanging, jumping is a method of suicide that belongs to the desperate. It is something even animals are capable of. A Scythian horse-breeder once attempted to have a

35 Edgeworth, 129 36 Van Hooff, 71

young stallion mate with its mother. He tricked the animal into doing so by covering the

mother’s head. Once the truth had been discovered, it threw itself into an abyss.37 Maira, a female dog, pined away for the death of her master at first by refusing food, but then at last jumped into a well to escape the unbearable grief.38

When there was a lack of the sea or a convenient abyss, there were apartment buildings or bridges, especially in a large city such as Rome. Juvenal attests to the availability of such heights in Satires 6:

Postumus, are you really taking a wife? You used to be sane enough – what fury’s got into you, what snake has stung you up? Why endure such bitch-tyranny when rope’s available by the fathom, when all those dizzying top-floor windows are open for you, when the Aemilian Bridge is near at hand to jump from?39 (Juvenal, Satires 6.28-32)40

There are 102 cases of individuals throwing themselves into water or onto the ground making it the third in frequency. Aigeus threw himself into the sea thereby giving his name to it.

Solois had been in love with the queen of the Amazons Antiope; after losing her to Theseus he dove into a river. Ino jumped after accidentally killing her own children. Skylla jumped into the sea having been abandoned by Minos even after she sacrificed her purple hair in order to enable him to take her home town of Megara.41 Sappho, due to unfulfilled passion for a man, is even said to have thrown herself into the Ionian Sea.42 The companions of Aeneas throw themselves to the ground during the sack of Troy so hopeless are they:

I look back, and reconnoiter what force is around me.

37 Van Hooff, xiii 38 Van Hooff, 6 39 Van Hooff, 73 40 Juvenal, Satires 6.28-32, uxorem, Postume, ducis? / dic, qua Tisiphone, quibus exagitare1 colubris? / ferre potes dominam salvis tot restibus ullam, / cum pateant altae caligantesque fenestrae, / cum tibi vicinum se praebeat Aemilius pons? 41 Van Hooff, 73 42 Van Hooff, 74

All, worn out, have deserted me, and with a leap have cast their bodies to the ground or given them exhausted to the flames. (Virgil, Aeneid, II.564-6)43

One might think that Dido might have also jumped to her death so consumed by despair and passion was she, but she steps back and carefully plans her death in an almost desperate attempt to restore the honor she had lost.

Poison

Death by poison was far more Greek than Roman. There is a 20:10:23 ratio of Roman to barbarian to Greek accounts. Van Hooff asserts that the expertise in the art was much greater among the Greeks as many, including Socrates, were executed using poison in Athens.

Apparently on the nearby slope of Mount Hymettus, hemlock was grown and used by the public.

Opium was another deadly poison. Pliny the Elder calls it somniferous (somnifera) and deadly- ferous (mortifera). Serpent’s plant, ophiusa, was another death-bringing herb. It is described as being ‘livid in color and revolting to look at.’ When one took it, it brought about horrifying visions of serpents, so fearful that one dies.44 Contemporary culture views poison as having a distinctly female signature, but in antiquity there are only 13 female cases as compared to 40 male, making this not the case in the ancient world.45 Cleopatra is perhaps the most well known for this mode of suicide. Edgeworth notes that, especially concerning the Aeneid, having a female character die by means of poison would be an unmistakable reference to Cleopatra.46

Fire

43 Virgil, Aeneid, II.564-6, respicio et quae sit me circum copia lustro./ deseruere omnes defessi, et corpora saltu / ad terram misere aut ignibus aegra dedere. 44 Van Hooff, 60-61 45 Van Hooff, 62 46 Edgeworth, 129

Fire was chosen by those wishing for an exotic and ostentatious death spectacle. There

are 35 documented accounts. Hercules stands out as the most prominent mythical example of the

phenomenon. This was in general, however, seen as a very barbaric means of death, and rightly

so. Out of the 35 accounts, 15 are by barbarians.47 In the Dido episode, the queen finishes off her suicide by burning on a pyre. In addition to creating a signal large enough to reach Aeneas out at sea, this gives an exotic flair to her death, fitting as throughout the narrative she is shown to be the opposite of a Roman. Edgeworth disagrees that the pyre was built specifically so that

Aeneas and the Trojans would be able to see it since they do not take the smoke as direct evidence of her death, but only receive news of it later when they are perhaps in Sicily.48

Edgeworth points out that instead it serves a literary purpose, i.e. to call to mind the death of the

wife of Hasdrubal:49

Then turning to Hasdrubal, ‘Wretch,’ she exclaimed, ‘traitor, most effeminate of men, this fire will entomb me and my children. But as for you, what Roman triumph will you, the leader of great Carthage decorate? Ah, what punishment will you not receive from him at whose feet you are now sitting.’ Having reproached him thus, she slew her children, flung them into the fire, and plunged in after them. 50

Edgeworth says that the story of Hasdrubal’s wife is close in several instances to that of

Dido. He says that the wife’s first complaint is that he left “without saying a word to her,” which

is Dido’s first complaint to Aeneas (IV.305-306). Second, Hasdrubal and Aeneas both ultimately

leave their women for the Romans. Third, Hasdrubal prayed that the gods of Carthage would

take vengeance upon him, while Dido prays that the gods would curse and hound Aeneas as well

47 Van Hooff, 59 48 Edgeworth, 130 49 Edgeworth, 131 50 Appian Punic Wars, xix.131, trans. Horace White, εἶτ᾽ ἐς τὸν Ἀσδρούβαν ἐπιστρέψασα εἶπεν: ‘ὦ µιαρὲ καὶ ἄπιστε καὶ µαλακώτατε ἀνδρῶν, ἐµὲ µὲν καὶ τοὺς ἐµοὺς παῖδας τόδε τὸ πῦρ θάψει: σὺ δὲ τίνα κοσµήσεις θρίαµβον ὁ τῆς µεγάλης Καρχηδόνος ἡγεµών; τίνα δ᾽ οὐ δώσεις δίκην τῷδε ᾧ παρακαθέζῃ;’ τοσαῦτ᾽ ὀνειδίσασα κατέσφαξε τοὺς παῖδας, καὶ ἐς τὸ πῦρ αὐτούς τε καὶ ἑαυτὴν ἐπέρριψεν.

as his descendants (IV.607-629).51 It would be interesting if there was any evidence as to exactly which gods Hasdrubal’s wife prayed to as the historical Dido was later worshiped as a goddess in

Carthage. 52 Finally, Edgeworth notes, Hasdrubal’s wife perishes among the fires, and these fires have turned the whole temple into the final funeral pyre of Carthage herself. Undoubtedly, Vergil was thinking of the fall of Carthage when he set Dido to burn upon the pyre thereby having the pyre’s chief purpose be to make the connection with the fall of Carthage.53

There is a concept of the importance of saving face in one’s time of dying- that is both one’s reputation and one’s physical face. Jumping, hanging, and even poison all disfigure the body and are not good means for preserving one’s dignitas. There is an emphasis put on

considering how one’s body will be found after the deed is done. To be in a good physical

condition, as good as a dead body can be, is to have embraced death with poise and a grace

found in individuals of the highest character. When individuals rush into death by swiftly

grabbing the rope or hastily jumping off of a roof, we find an air of disgrace and a mark of

desperation. While hanging experienced some popularity and respectability in myth, overall it

held no appeal to those wishing for respect after death. This is the ideal though. In reality

hanging was one of the most popular methods exercised by all. The method, though, is not nearly

as important as the reasons behind the self-killing. This is evident in the statistics: in the 960 total

cases, no method is given for 282, yet only 37 cases are shown to be lacking a determinable

motive.54

51 Edgeworth, 132 52 Justin, Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus, 18.6.6 (Trans. Watson) 53 Edgeworth, 133 54 Van Hooff, 78

Motives Explained

Based on the nature of the data, it is only under special circumstances that we have

introspection into the self-killer’s exact motives. The examples of Seneca and St. Augustine

stand out as two of the few examples. The motives for the majority of cases we have to infer

based on other information. Elise P. Garrison gives four key categories of motivation for suicides

in antiquity: “to avoid disgrace and preserve an honorable reputation; to avoid further suffering;

to end grief; and to sacrifice oneself for the greater good.”55 The following three charts depict the

frequency of certain motives in cases in which these have been specified. The first chart

combines the subsequent two, which distinguish between the motives of men and women. This

gives us a visual picture of the overall reasons why humans killed themselves and then how the reasons compare when one separates the data of the different sexes. There are 923 total cases in which motives have been specified, the majority being the suicides of men (652 cases) and then women accounting for only 266. There are approximately 2.5 times more cases when you compare men versus women. The most popular motives for everyone are pudor, desperata salus,

and dolor.

55 Garrison, Groaning Tears: Ethical and Dramatic Aspects of Suicide in Greek Tragedy, 2

56

56 Van Hooff, 85

57

58

57 Van Hooff, 86 (Some percentages changed to reflect the accurate mathematical values)

Dolor

Dolor means pain, greif, anguish, or sorrow, and acts as the cause of death for 27% of women (60 individual cases). Van Hooff chooses to define dolor specifically as grief, although he admits that it can also signify bodily pain, and says that dolor in the case of women is especially grief over lost love.59 Because of this, Dido fits easily into this category, but as we will see later, she is not constrained to it.60 There are many reasons behind a suicide in antiquity, as well as today, and we would be doing a disservice to an individual if we neglected the multiple layers of his or her pain for the purpose of finding one true reason. The following chart illustrates the 5 usages of dolor and its variations in Aeneid Book 4:

Line Variation Subject in relation to 419 dolorem Dido 474 dolore Dido 547 dolorem Dido 679 dolor Dido 693 dolorem Dido

The repetition of this word in direct relation to Dido highly indicates that dolor is a cause of her death.

58 Van Hooff, 86 59 Van Hooff, 100 60 Van Hooff lists dolor as Dido’s cause of death in Appendix A (207), but in nowhere in his chapter Causae Moriendi does he examine Dido’s death in any detail. Only on pages 92 and 124 is she mentioned by name in an indirect context. (On the death of the wife of Hasdrubal) “She at least showed herself a worthy member of Didos race.” “It was not onhly mythical and historical Didos and Medeas (talking about noble women) that put an end to their life when they had lost all hope.” (92) “On the lips of the Epicurean Diodoris it was Dido’s goodbye.”(124) I don’t know why this choice to omit her directly was made because to me she would seem an obvious example of a suicide. For the purpose of my argument, I want to interpret this omission as Dido fitting so well into many categories that she can’t truly be constrained to one, but this doesn’t hold up too well due to the official causae moriendi for her as listed as dolor in Appendix A. This is also problematic because Van Hooff, in the section of Desperata Salus, associates this cause of death with Dido (pg. 92 as quoted above).

Desperata Salus

Desperata salus, lit. ‘lacking hope of safety,’ accounts for 22% of the total 923 cases

with it occurring 204 times for both men and women, 146 times for men, and 27 times for

women. This expression was used by Cesar to depict the mindset of his soldiers when they killed

themselves after having resisted attacks by Ambiorix. They did not act wholly out of panic, but

they realized that an alternative exit was nowhere to be found. 61 Another example of this would

be in Book II of the Aeneid62, in which Aeneas observes his fellow Trojans jumping to their deaths or throwing themselves to the fires during the sack of Troy. In other cases, fear of losing honor or loyalty to their leader contributes to the decisions of the soldiers.63 Suicide as a result of desperata salus often occurs in mass numbers among men mainly when experiencing a loss in battle.

Women, as they are not in the heat of battle, experience desperata salus for different reasons. Antigone is an example of this. While later we will see that she consigns herself to die on account of different reasons, something that can be seen as suicide by provocation, she ultimately carries out her own death having determined the verdict that there was no alternative exit. Van Hooff says that suicides for this reason often encompass noble women who act as the situation requires.64 Dido expresses her own desperata salus in the later part of Book 4 when she is contemplating her choices of action after the reality of Aeneas’ departure has sunk in:

'en, quid ago? rursusne procos inrisa priores experiar, Nomadumque petam conubia supplex, quos ego sim totiens iam dedignata maritos? Iliacas igitur classis atque ultima Teucrum iussa sequar? quiane auxilio iuvat ante levatos

61 Van Hooff, 85-86 62 Given before as an example of suicide by jumping 63 Van Hooff, 87 64 Van Hooff, 92

et bene apud memores veteris stat gratia facti? quis me autem, fac velle, sinet ratibusve superbis invisam accipiet?

Ah, what will I do? Should I, having been mocked, try again my former suitors, and as a supplicant should I seek a marriage with the Nomads, whom I have already so often scorned as bridegrooms? Should I then follow the Trojan fleet and the last orders of the Trojans? Is it because it helps me that before they have been assisted by my help and because gratitude for the former service stands well with the mindful? But who will allow me, suppose I wish it, or receive me hated, in haughty ships? (IV. 534-541)

Here she is coming to the conclusion that suicide is her only option because she has no

chance of safety in all other possible cources of action, but there are many motives behind her

death. Another is pudor and her loss of it.

Pudor

Another common reason people – especially women – killed themselves in antiquity was

on account of pudor, which can be translated as a number of things including ‘shame,’

‘decency,’ or ‘sense of honor.’ Van Hooff defines it as ‘no longer being who you used to be.’65

Robert Kaster says, “It depends on notions of personal worthiness (dignitas) and value

(existimatio), which in turn derive from seeing [oneself] being seen in creditable terms.”66 It accounts for the highest number of suicides across the board: 296 total cases, 212 men, 79 women.67 Suicides for this reason are done because the individual either perceives the risk of losing his or her pudor or seeks to make it known. Cicero himself says that he once deliberated suicide for this reason but did not go through with it:

65 Van Hooff, 107 66 Kaster, 29 67 Van Hooff, 85-86

I withdrew from a war where there was nothing left but either to die in battle, or fall into some ambush, or pass into the conqueror’s hands, or to take refuge with Juba, or to find a spot for what could practically be exile, or deliberately to die by one’s own hand. (Cicero, Epistulae familiares, 7.3)68

He includes in this letter evidence that there was an old saying ubi non sis, qui fueris, non esse, cur velis vivere, ‘if you are no more who you used to be, there is no reason why you should wish to live’. When Ajax is deprived of the honor of receiving the weapons of Achilles, he no longer has the dignity he once had, and thus he has no reason left to live. A major influence on pudor is where an individual places his or her self-worth. If an individual such as Ajax perceives his self-worth as being given to him by others around him, when he is not given that, he no longer has any reason left to live. As we will see, Dido binds her sense of self-worth to Aeneas, and when he leaves, so does it.

Furor

Furor means ‘madness, rage, fury, frenzy, or passionate love.’ Today’s reader might be tempted to associate furor with a variety of mental illnesses due to the high awareness in our society, but this in part is where there is a clear divide between antiquity and today. 69 Van Hooff asserts that generally speaking mental imbalances were hardly noted by ancient people, which

68 Cicero, Epistulae familiares, 7.3, discessi ab eo bello, in quo aut in acie cadendum fuit aut in aliquas insidias incidendum aut deveniendum in victoris manus aut ad Iubam confugiendum aut capiendus tamquam exsilio locus aut consciscenda mors voluntaria. 69 According to the 2002 article, "Familial, Psychiatric, And Socioeconomic Risk Factors For Suicide In Young People: Nested Case-Control Study," 15% of the suicides of young people were cases in which the victim had been previously admitted for mental illness, and this history of mental illness or a family history of suicide or mental illness was a heavy contributer to the deaths of these youths. The study suggests that preventative strategies should be put into effect as soon as the earliest signs of recognition for the optimal treatment of mental illnesses. (Agerbo, 76) This footnote is included to give the reader a clear picture of the reality of suicide as experienced today. Keep in mind that this statistic only accounts for those cases in which the patients were previously diagnosed and does not account for the unknown number of the undiagnosed.

leads to the result that cases of suicide as a result of depression were not recorded.70 It is very easy when applying this category to Dido to write her off as just another crazy woman, which is a popular category to fit women into in today’s world and one that will certainly be prevelant in the minds of most of our students.71 Here I would include a reminder that Dido is suffering from furor and is plagued by it; she did not seek it out. The following chart illustrates the 16 usage of furor and its variations throughout Aeneid Book 4:

Line Variation Subject in relation to 42 furentes Barcaeans (a race Dido has conquered) 65 furentem Dido 69 furens Dido 91 furori Dido 101 furorem Dido 283 furentem Dido 298 furenti Dido 376 Furiis Dido (inflamed with rage/by the Furies) 433 furori Dido 465 furentem Dido 474 furias Dido 501 furores Dido 548 furentem Dido 646 furibunda Dido 670 furentes Flames from Dido’s pyre that spread through Carthage 697 furore Dido

70 Van Hooff, 97 71 Here it is appropriate to briefly discuss Taylor Swift due to her popularity especially amongst the younger generation, i.e. the 14-22 year olds that are most likely to be in our high school or undergraduate classes. She is perhaps the most famous member of the ‘crazy woman’ trope and has in fact embraced it in her hit song Blank Space, “I’ve got a long list of ex-lovers; they’ll tell you I’m insane.” So when we discuss Dido in the classroom, it is important to remember that there will be these types of associations made in the minds of students who could be inclined to poke fun at an otherwise serious situation.

Clearly this is a huge theme in Book 4 of the Aeneid and should be thought of as a major cause

of Dido’s death. Almost every occurrence of furor directly references Dido; only the remaining

two indirectly reference her. Furor is introduced as something Dido has conquered and

concludes with something that conquered Dido.

Inpatientia

Inpatientia, or the inability to bear, was deemed to be an allowable reason for ending

one’s life. Seneca’s thoughts of suicide in his youth fall into this category. His bronchial troubles

caused almost unbearable suffering. The final words of certain Greek philosophers were kept for

posterity’s sake. The last words of an Epicurean philosopher, Diodoros, who died due to

inpatientia were the final words of Dido72: ‘I have lived my life and finished the course which

Fortune allotted to me.’73It is interesting that he chose these specific words to sum up his life

since Dido did not die due to the inability to bear physical maladies, but rather emotional ones.

Van Hooff does not regard emotional pains as part of inpatientia, and perhaps for the sake of

separating out the different causes so that they do belong to a different category. I disagree very

strongly with this. I understand that it is useful to divide clearly between categories, but physical

and mental pain are much too connected to make a clear distinction. A study by the Proceedings

of the National Academy of Sciences shows that there is a neural overlap between physical and

emotional pain.74This allows for suffers of physical ailments such as Diodoros to connect with

suffers of emotional ones such as Dido and makes the category of inpatientia able to encompass

both the physical and the emotional spheres.

72 Van Hooff, 124 73 Virgil, Aeneid, 4.653 vixi et quem dederat cursum Fortuna peregi 74 Kross

The Dido Tradition

There are many different literary examples of female suicide in Greek and Roman mythology, each one as colorful as the last.75 Alcestis, a devoted wife, embraced death so that her husband could continue to live. Calypso is said to have killed herself out of love for

Odysseus.76 Eurydice slew herself with a sword after the suicide of her son Haemon. The sons of

Halia gang raped their mother, inspiring her to drown herself in the sea, which was fitting as

Poseidon was the father. Jocasta stabbed herself once she learned the incestuous truth about the relationship between her and Oedipus. Polyxena, a lover of Achilles, killed herself on his tomb after his death at the hands of Paris. The Sirens threw themselves into the sea when they failed against Odysseus. The suicide I will be focusing on is that of Dido, who kills herself upon the departure of her lover Aeneas.

Before discussing Dido as she appears in the Aeneid, her literary antecedents must be discussed; for from there we can see how Virgil changed her story to fit his needs. According to

Justin’s rendering of Trogus’ account, Dido (Elissa) was a very beautiful princess who had a brother Pygmalion. When their father died, Pygmalion was made king, though he was only just a boy. Dido was happily married to her uncle, Acerbas (or Sicharbas). Since he was a priest of

Heracles, he was second in power next to his wife’s brother and his nephew, King Pygmalion.

Pygmalion heard the rumors that Acerbas had massive wealth accumulated and secretly buried somewhere, so he had him murdered in order to gain this wealth. Dido wished to escape Tyre and her brother, now her enemy, so she craftily thought of a plan. She sent word to her brother saying that she wished to come live in the palace.

75 Garrison, "Suicidal Females in Greek and Roman Mythology: A Catalogue." 76 Hyginus, Fables 243

When Pygmalion sent servants to help her move, she ordered the servants to throw all the bags of gold from her late husband’s buried wealth into the sea saying that it was an offering to his spirit. But the real gold was not in these bags. Instead the bags contained sand, but the servants were unaware of this fact. Dido then persuaded the servants to join her as she fled the country for another land saying that they should rather become fugitives than face Pygmalion and his wrath once he discovered what had supposedly been done with Acerbas’ wealth. She was also joined by some senators. They picked up a priest of Jupiter from Cyprus along with around eighty young women, whom the men in the party took as wives.

Dido and her band made their way to the coast of North Africa where the inhabitants welcomed them. She asked them for a small piece of land that could be used as a temporary camp until she and her followers got back on the road again, and they agreed to give her as much land as an ox hide could encompass. Dido displayed her cleverness again and cut the hide into narrow strips, which she strung together and used to encircle an entire hill nearby. Many of the locals joined her, and the building of a city was encouraged. As the legend goes, when digging the city foundations an ox’s head was found and on another hill a horse’s head. The ox’s head was said to indicate that the city would be wealthy, although always enslaved. The horse’s head was said to indicate that the city would be powerful in war.

Carthage was thus established and soon prospered, attracting the attention of Iarbas, the king of the Mauretanians. He met with ten chief men of Carthage and demanded Dido for his bride threatening war if she refused. The envoys feared to report this message to their queen, so they were vague when reporting the details of their mission. They said, “the king asked for some person to teach him and his Africans a more civilized way of life, but who could be found that

would leave his relations and go to barbarians and people that were living like wild beasts?”77

They did not expect the queen’s response. She reproached them saying that she would sentence

anyone who refused to give their life for the city to death. “In case they refused a hard life for the

benefit of their country, to which circumstances require, their life itself was due.”78 Once the true message from the king was revealed, the queen was caught in her own words. She said that if she wished for her city to remain secure, she must abide by what she required of others. She could either marry Iarbas or remain faithful to the memory of her husband.

She took three months for her to resolve this internal conflict. She raised a large funeral pyre at the edge of the city and sacrificed many victims saying that these would appease the shade of her husband before her marriage. She then took a sword and climbed up the pile. She stood and looked at the people and said that she would do as they desired and go to her husband.

After saying these words, she fell upon the sword, thus ending her life. Afterwards she was worshipped as a goddess.

According to Marilynn Desmond, Virgil departs from the historical figure of Dido in favor of a Dido in Aeneid 4 as a sexualized woman who, seduced by love, forsakes her oath to

Sychaeus and her role as a leader. This breaking of the oath is a sharp contrast to the historical

Dido who died in order to preserve this oath. Virgil’s version of Dido, she says, is highly indebted to the historical depiction of her, especially regarding her status as a political figure. 79

The death of the historical Dido is set in place as a result of her maintaining her word and setting an example to her people as someone who does not go back on her oaths. In Virgil’s narrative,

77 Justin, Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus, 18.6.6 (Trans. Watson) 78Justin, Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus, 18.6.6 (Trans. Watson) 79 Desmond, 28

Dido slips into a state of disgrace with her people instead of ending up being worshipped as their goddess.

In-depth Analysis of Virgil’s Dido

From the moment the Trojans land on her shores, Virgil’s Dido is doomed. The sailors beg for her to take pity on them and to let them stay in her city so that they might prepare their ships to set sail for Italy once more. Dido, unknowingly, seals her fate and welcomes them with open arms:

urbem quam statuo vestra est, subducite navis; Tros Tyriusque mihi nullo discrimine agetur.

The city which I am founding is yours, dock your ships; Trojan and Tyrian will be governed by me with no division. (I.573-4)

She assumes here that she will be the one to govern both cities as one, even though the

Trojans bring with them their own leader. In doing so she assumes that this Trojan ruler will be

no threat to her and her domain. Francis Cairns though suggests that Dido feels challenged as a

ruler and is therefore motivated to put her ‘good king’ qualities on display by showing the

Trojans her kindness and generosity. Here she is showing her justice with the offer of equal

citizenship and treatment.80 She could feel this way not only as one ruler feels challenged by

another ruler, but also as a woman challenged by a man. She has worked hard to maintain her

status as an unwed queen up until this point by continuingly refusing the marriage proposals of

her neighbors. With a new king in town81, she feels the need to assert her dominance and thereby justify her capabilities to rule a people without herself being under a king. At this stage she seems content to be a kingless queen and an eternal widow. Our knowledge of the supposed desires of women in antiquity contradicts that and tells us instead that women were defined by men and as such were nothing without a male in control of their lives. Elise P. Garrison writes,

80 Cairns, 42 81 Aeneas isn’t technically a king here, but Cairns (42) counts him as such when discussing his ‘good king’ qualities.

“The physical and psychological dependence of females on males was so socially ingrained that the female personality and social function was only complete in its relationship to the male.”82

Dido however appears to be the exception to this assertion. Up until now she seems to have a complete personality and social function without a male in her life. Virgil writes:

talis erat Dido, talem se laeta ferebat

such was Dido, of such a kind joyful she was bearing herself (I.503)

Here she seems happy and confident with her social independence. Though maybe

Garrison was right; maybe Dido deep down felt incomplete without a husband. For Aeneas appears behind her and says:

improvisus ait: ‘Coram, quem quaeritis, adsum,’

unexpected he says: ‘Face to face, I am whom you seek’ (I.595)

This could be taken as foreshadowing for the coming unofficial marriage, or at least a hint that Dido is craving a husband. Aeneas then goes on to say:

Di tibi, si qua pios respectant numina, si quid usquam iustitia est et mens sibi conscia recti, praemia digna ferant.

may the gods, if any deities regard the pious, if anywhere there is justice and a mind conscious to itself of right, bring you just rewards. (I.603-5)

In a way Aeneas is unknowingly invoking the gods for Dido’s suffering death. As we will see, Dido will act impiously and break her vows to her late husband. The gods who regard the

82 Garrison, "Suicide in Classical Mythology: An Essay”

pious will then grant her the ‘just rewards’, i.e. her despair to come. We will see later on whether

or not these just rewards included her suicide. However, is her punishment truly deserved? Was

it really her fault that she was so enamored with Aeneas that she forgot Sychaeus? Virgil seems

to think not. Whose fault is it then? Venus is the answer. Venus seems to be the instigator of

many troubles, most notably the Trojan War. If she had not offered Paris the bribe of an already

married woman, the war might not have happened. But on the other hand, she is the mother of

pious Aeneas and helps him on his quest to found Rome. In a way, Venus is at least partially

responsible for the foundation of Rome. Keeping in mind that Dido is the queen of Carthage,

later to become Rome’s mortal enemy, the next few lines of the poem can be seen as an attack on

Carthage by Rome, or perhaps the gods guiding the two nations to violently cross paths with

each other:

at Cytherea novas artes, nova pectore versat consilia, ut faciem mutatus et ora Cupido pro dulci Ascanio veniat, donisque furentem incendat reginam, atque ossibus implicet ignem;

but Venus is turning over new schemes and new plans in her heart, that Cupid, changed in form and features, may come instead of sweet Ascanius, and by his gifts may inflame the raging queen, and may implant fire within her bones; (I.657-60)

This ‘fire within her bones’ will soon consume her body upon a funeral pyre. This fire

placed inside her heart is ultimately the cause of her downfall. Cairns states that although Dido

has been exhibiting the qualities of a good king, she has never been described, as Aeneas has

been, as possessing self-control, abstinence from pleasure, and wisdom.83 It is because of this lack of self-control that her deterioration as not only a ruler, but as a complete human being is so

83 Cairns, 42

swift. Up until now, Dido is innocent, having kept true to her vows and to her city, but innocent

as she may be, she is still unknowingly doomed:

inscia Dido insidat quantus miserae deus;at memor ille matris Acidaliae paulatim abolere Sychaeum incipit, et vivo temptat praevertere amore iam pridem resides animos desuetaque corda.

Dido is ignorant, Of how great a god takes possession of her wretched self; But he, mindful of his Acidalian mother, Gradually begins to erase Sychaeus, And tries to eclipse her mind now for a long time Listless and her disaccustomed heart with a fresh passion (I.718-22)

So are Dido’s later trials and tribulations a product of her own faults, or are they the fruit of arguably the most formidable of all the gods? Even Venus admits that Cupid is her strength:

'Nate, meae vires, mea magna potentia solus, nate, patris summi qui tela Typhoia temnis,

My son, my strength, my mighty power, Son, you who alone scoffs at the Typhonian thunderbolts of the great father (I.664-5)

Now if Cupid is so powerful that he can laugh at Jupiter, how could anyone think that there was any sort of hope at all for Dido? From this point forward, Dido is driven by the madness only love can bring to her death. To use a Virgilian metaphor, she is the deer having been shot by Cupid’s lethal arrow sentenced to die. Here love is the enemy to the Carthaginian queen. The destructive nature of love was not unfamiliar to Virgil. In his Eclogues, he writes:

Omnia vincit Amor; et nos cedamus Amori.

Love conquers all; and let us submit to Love. (X.63)

It takes a powerful woman to rule a nation and have the respect of her people. It takes an

even more powerful force to conquer her, and there is nothing more powerful than love.

Virgil concludes Book 1 by telling us that unlucky Dido is drawing out the banquet

furthering her love for Aeneas, sentencing her to a fate that is infelix (I.749). Infelix is used to describe Dido seven times throughout the Aeneid. Twice in Book 1 (I.712, 749), four times in

Book 4 (IV.68, 450, 529, 596), and once in Book 6 (VI.456). Just as the fate of Aeneas dictates

that he should sail to Italy and be the founder of Rome, the fate of Dido dictates that she should

be infelix as a result of a love that is beyond her control.

The loss of control is Dido’s undoing. Book IV of the Aeneid tells the story of how love took over Dido’s life and ultimately caused her destruction. The book opens with a continuation of the theme from Book I: Dido is consumed with thoughts of and love for Aeneas.

At regina gravi iamdudum saucia cura vulnus alit venis et caeco carpitur igni.

But the queen, for a long time hurt by a passionate love, Nourishes her wounds within her veins, and is consumed by blind passion. (IV.1-2)

The passive voice here (carpitur), further illustrates that Dido is not the agent in her own story, but now her actions are governed caeco … igni, by blind passion. Cairns states that while according to some ancient moral standards, forgetting her love for her former husband Sychaeus may have been considered a forgivable sin, no excuse could be made for this sort of love for

Aeneas that goes beyond every boundary of royal self-control.84

multa viri virtus animo multusque recursat gentis honos; haerent infixi pectore vultus verbaque nec placidam membris dat cura quietem.

The many virtues of the man (Aeneas) run back to her mind

84 Cairns, 43

As does his great noble birth; his face and his words cling to her heart having been fastened, and love does not give calm rest to her limbs. (IV.3-5)

Cairns states that Dido’s attraction to the royal qualities in Aeneas – heroic courage, noble

descent, and good appearance – only serves to make her plight worse.85 This is beginning of her restlessness and the beginning of many sleepless nights to come. Virgil introduces an important theme here, which is that to those overpowered by love, sleep is hard to come by. He also introduces the verb haere(n)t, to cling to, a word he will use four times within the book, twice with Dido and twice to Aeneas having introduced it in I.495 where Aeneas gazes on images of the Trojan War.

…haerent infixi pectore vultus verba…

his face and his words cling to her heart having been fastened (IV.4)

… haeret lateri letalis harundo.

A lethal arrow clings to her side. (IV.73)

ipsa haeret scopulis…

it clings to the rocks (IV.445)

…hic terminus haeret

this end is fixed (IV.614)

The first use is with Dido. She acts as the passive party and the personified features and

words of Aeneas cling to her, rendering her helpless and unable to sleep. This parallels her story

85 Cairns, 43

arc throughout the Aeneid. She doesn’t seek out love, pain, and ultimately self-destruction, but

rather they seek her out. From her perspective, she is in the wrong place at the wrong time, but

from Virgil’s perspective as the author of the story who needs her as a driving part of the

narrative, it has to be her. Fortune, it seems, has chosen her as an unfortunate victim in a grander

design.

The second usage is in a simile illustrating Dido’s frenzied wandering around the city.

She is likened to a deer, struck by an arrow shot by a shepherd. She can’t escape or remove the

arrow and she can’t die just yet, but rather she is doomed to run through the woods until she

bleeds out. This wounded deer metaphor is terribly tragic and describes Dido’s plight perfectly.

A shepherd has spotted a deer in the woods while hunting, takes aim, and shoots. The arrow

flies, and she runs off.86

This fits with Dido’s story arc, because she was figuratively shot with an arrow of love.

She didn’t know what hit her until it was too late. So now she is roaming the wilderness looking for a place to lay down and either recover or die. Since love is not merciful towards Dido, it will not be a quick death, but rather a slow, agonizing one.

86 This is to be expected of deer who react to the noise first and then the wound. She would have bolted away, but then stopped to see what scared her. The shepherd doesn’t know it, but that arrow lodged itself in her side. She would have fallen over dead if he had hit her in a vital area. The most humane place he could have shot her would have been the hand-size area just above the heart, which is the epicenter of the circulatory system. It contains several major blood vessels and is surrounded by the lungs. An arrow through this area would cause a rapid drop in blood pressure, so rapid in fact that the deer would either drop dead immediately or in mid-step a few seconds later. Even when shot properly, sometimes a deer will run between 40 and 100 yards. Most other shots, any hunter would have to wait for the deer to go lay down somewhere. If it was a shot to the gut, which one could tell by looking for and smelling the blood, the hunter would have to wait about 8 hours before going and looking for her in order to give her some time to die. Unless pushed by the hunter and being shot again, the deer will naturally go lay down, which will usually result in it bleeding out, causing it to essentially fall asleep and never wake up. (Ard)

Page duBois notes the transition of Dido from the huntress to the hunted. She was first

associated with Diana, the virgin goddess of the hunt, then with the Amazons who pursue and

conquer. Only after spiraling into her love affair with Aeneas, does she relinquish this identity

and undergo the inversion. She is transformed from predator to prey. DuBois even suggests that

we are to see Dido as a sacrificial animal.87 Richard Moorton notes that in the comparison of the wound of love to a physical wound of an arrow on a deer, Virgil is preparing for the transformation of Dido’s metaphorical wound to a real one.88

The third usage of haerere is in another simile, this time depicting Aeneas. He is like an oak tree being buffeted by fierce winds. Like an oak tree, he remains firm and fixed. Nothing will move him. The fourth use is spoken by Dido in reference to Aeneas and his fate. At this point she has given up hoping that he will return to her. If it’s destined, so will it be.

Line 9 of the book introduces the reader to Anna, the trusted sister of Dido. Scared of her newly awakened feelings, Dido turns to her for counsel and comfort. Through Dido’s confession to her, we as the readers get insight into what exactly Dido is thinking. ‘Anna soror, quae me suspensam insomnia terrent,” she says. Her insomnia, her sleeplessness, frightens her. This lack

of sleep is a recurring motif and ultimately a chief cause of her self-destruction. Lack of sleep is

physically draining and exhausting, but whatever plagues the mind so far as to render it

incapable of finding rest is even more draining and more exhausting. This feeling of tiredness

extends beyond the physical; it’s not something that a cup of coffee or even a long nap can fix.

It’s an exhaustion that reaches right down into the bones of a person. Dido isn’t just tired because

she can’t sleep well. She is tired because of the love and anxiety that prevents her from

87 duBois, 20 88 Moorton, 157

experiencing rest. It’s something she can’t escape, and that is why it is so terrifying. It has her

suspended, having little to no control over the situation. Dido then says:

si mihi non animo fixum immotumque sederet ne cui me vinclo vellem sociare iugali, postquam primus amor deceptam morte fefellit; si non pertaesum thalami taedaeque fuisset, huic uni forsan potui succumbere culpae.

If it were not seated fixed and unchangeable in my mind that I may not wish to join myself to anyone in marriage bond after my first love cheated me having been deceived; if I had not been utterly weary of the marriage couch and torch, I might could perchance yield to this one fault. (IV. 15-19)

Again the language of something being fixed or seated occurs, and we then have a better idea of exactly what anxieties are keeping her from much needed rest. Formerly she believed that she was immotum, unable to be moved because of her late husband’s death. The language she uses to describe her late husband’s death is quite interesting. She says that she has been disappointed and deceived by his death. The reader who knows how the story will play out will know that she will be disappointed and deceived again, but by another. History in a way will repeat itself for Dido, this time with a graver outcome.

Back to Dido’s first bouts of insomnia - now that someone new has entered into the picture, someone backed by the gods with the power to move her, she is questioning herself and everything she had thought to be true. As we have discussed, Dido was once a self-assured queen who did not need a husband to complete her and support her ability to effectively rule a powerful nation. She shone with confidence and independence. If one knows anything about the stereotypes of women in antiquity, one will recognize immediately that this is far from the norm and not exactly something admirable back then, though now we think differently in that respect.

Dido’s identity was in her role as queen. Now, though, the tides are turning and we will see that

she loses her identity as ruler of a nation and fixes it instead to the role of a lover. This is all

highly problematic for her. Dido seems to be a woman of extremes, someone who operates all or

nothing. There is no sense of real moderation in her, which is something that a Roman audience

would be inclined to recognize and disapprove of. The real problem with that though is she is

committing her entire personhood, her entire life to one thing. Unable to bring herself to marry

again, she has thrown herself entirely into her work. She has placed her life there. Were she to

lose her kingdom previous to the arrival of Aeneas, the outcome might be similar to how she

reacts at Aeneas’ departure. But the gods have stirred up fires long forgotten and she feels her

spirit wavering. She is transitioning from the role of someone in power to someone who is

overpowered and is rightly distressed by all of this. Even now at this stage, she expresses a wish

for death should she fully transition from her formerly sworn position.

sed mihi vel tellus optem prius ima dehiscat vel pater omnipotens adigat me fulmine ad umbras, pallentis umbras Erebo noctemque profundam, ante, pudor, quam te violo aut tua iura resolvo.

But I should wish that either the depths of the earth may yawn for m Or the almighty father hurl me down by a thunderbolt to the shades, The pale shades of Erebus and profound night, Before I violate you, O propriety, or break your laws. (IV. 24-27)

Anna quickly dispels these wishes and tries to play the role of a good trusted advisor, but

instead plays the role of the ‘nurse’ in Greek tragedy. It is important, as Victor Castellani notes,

that although Anna urges what Dido and Virgil call culpa or crimen, Anna never describes it as such herself.89 She convinces Dido that the praemia Veneris, the rewards of Venus, are more to

be valued than oaths sworn to a dead lover’s ashes. She plants in Dido’s mind the idea of a new

marriage, one in fact sanctioned by the gods. At this point in time, Dido doesn’t even know if

89 Castelani, 55

Aeneas is romantically inclined to her, but here she and her sister are imagining the cities and

kingdoms that their marriage will inspire. It is exactly like naming your future children even

before your first date. It’s very easy to get swept away in imagining the future, but this will only

blind you to reality, making you unable to see a relationship for what it really is, something

probably not your true destiny as much as you would like it to be.

Victor Castellani says that without this first speech of Anna, it is possible that Dido

would have been able to hold on longer to her vow. It may have been painful, but she could have

held on longer if not forever.90 One can note here the absence of Anna as the advisor in the account of the historical Dido, which still ends with Dido’s death, but it is a death to uphold her honor instead of death at the despair of having forsaken it. Castellani says that despite Anna’s good intentions, she only makes things worse for her sister.91 Cairns says that Dido’s acceptance of this speech is an important indicator that Dido is on the decline from her status as a good king because she willingly receives bad advice from her sister.92

His dictis impenso animum flammavit amore spemque dedit dubiae menti solvitque pudorem.

With these words she fired her impassioned soul with love And gave hope to her wavering mind and dissolved her scruple. (IV. 54-55)

One can easily blame Anna for the consequences of her bad advice, and Dido later does,

but Dido is also at fault for giving in too easily to faulty logic. Already having her desires fixed

in her mind, Dido and her sister make sacrifices under the delusion of asking for blessings. Here

Virgil shows the destructive power of the very beginnings of a raging love:

quid vota furentem, quid delubra iuvant?

90 Castellani, 51 91 Castellani, 51 92 Cairns, 45

What vows, what shrines, can avail a raging (lover)? (IV. 64-5)

Virgil says that a soft flame (of love) eats away at her marrow. He then dives into the

wounded deer metaphor to showcase Dido’s frantic wanderings throughout the city. At this

point, her desperation for Aeneas is almost tangible. She tries enticing him with her Sidonian

wealth and her city having been built by her. She is unable to formulate complete sentences and

starts talking only to stop mid-flow. She begs for Aeneas to tell his story yet again, probably

paying more attention to him than the words coming out of his mouth. She’s got a crush, and it’s

crushing her, almost literally. She has made the full transition from ruler to lover, and the

consequences reach beyond her to the city depending on her control.

non coeptae adsurgunt turres, non arma iuventus exercet portusve aut propugnacula bello tuta parant: pendent opera interrupta minaeque murorum ingentes aequataque machina caelo.

The towers although begun, do not rise, the youths Do not practice the arms or provide harbors or safe ramparts for war; The works having been broken off are suspended, and the mighty threats Of the walls and the machines uplifted to the sky. (IV. 86-89)

Dido has stopped her entire world, all that she has to this point devoted her life to, for

Aeneas and they haven’t even kissed yet. Her love is no longer a simple wound (vulnus IV.67),

but now it is a plague (peste IV.90). Seeing this plague, Juno intervenes with Venus on Dido’s behalf. She recognizes that it is the fault of Venus and her son that Dido is consumed with passion for Aeneas.

habes tota quod mente petisti: ardet amans Dido traxitque per ossa furorem.

You have what you sought with all your mind: Dido loving, is on fire, and has drawn the frenzy through her bones.

(IV.100-1)

There is talk of marriage again, and Juno and Venus conspire to arrange some sort of

marriage between Dido and Aeneas. Dido takes Aeneas out hunting. When he arrives at the hunt

he is described as pulcherrimus, most beautiful of all (IV.141), elevating him to a position above everyone including Dido. He is also likened to Apollo:

qualis ubi hibernam Lyciam Xanthique fluenta deserit ac Delum maternam invisit Apollo

Just as Apollo, when he forsakes wintry Lycia and the streams of Xanthus, and visits his maternal Delos… (IV. 143-144)

But there is no deification of Dido. Before in Book 1 we saw her as being compared to

Apollo’s counterpart Diana:

Qualis in Eurotae ripis aut per iuga Cynthi exercet Diana choros, quam mille secutae hinc atque hinc glomerantur oreades; illa pharetram fert umero, gradiensque deas supereminet omnis: Latonae tacitum pertemptant gaudia pectus: talis erat Dido, talem se laeta ferebat per medios, instans operi regnisque futuris.

Even as on the banks of Eurotas, or through the heights of Cynthus, Diana keeps up the dancers, whom a thousand mountain nymphs following press around on this side and on that; she bears a quiver on her shoulder and moving towers over all the goddesses; joys pervade the silent breast of Latona; such was Dido, such was she bearing herself joyfully through the midst, pressing on the work of the future kingdoms. (I. 499-504) Instead there now is only depiction of her outfit and hair: Sidoniam picto chlamydem circumdata limbo; cui pharetra ex auro, crines nodantur in aurum, aurea purpuream subnectit fibula vestem.

With a Sidonian cloak surrounded by an embroidered border; Her quiver is of gold, her locks are knotted with gold, A golden clasp fastens her purple robe.

(IV.137-139)

This shows a physical deterioration in Dido’s appearance. While she shone with a divine

glory before, she now has lost that glow. One can imagine the physical toil this burden of love

has taken upon her appearance. As the glory of her appearance decreases, that of Aeneas does

not falter. This puts Dido in a very vulnerable position. She and Aeneas are no longer operating

at the same level. She has given him complete control over her fate. This sets everything up for

the infamous cave scene and its aftermath.

Dido and Aeneas take refuge in a cave; signs are given; fires flash; nymphs wail. That’s

it. That is the end, and now Dido is truly doomed. From the moment Dido and Aeneas reach the

cave to the pronouncement of what this means for Dido, Virgil spends four lines on this:

speluncam Dido dux et Troianus eandem deveniunt. prima et Tellus et pronuba Iuno dant signum; fulsere ignes et conscius aether conubiis summoque ulularunt vertice Nymphae.

Dido and the Trojan chief come to the same cave. First both Earth and bride-escorting Juno Give the sign; the fires flash, and heaven is witness To the nuptials and the nymphs shout from the topmost height. (IV. 165-168)

It is because of this scene that Dido believes she has entered ito a marriage agreement

with Aeneas. There is much debate among scholars regarding the validity of this. Desmond

points out the belief of many scholars that Dido is deluded.93 This delusion of Dido is based on the uncertain events happening in the cave. Some scholars assert that an actual wedding did in fact take place due to key words such as pronuba, Iuno, and conubiis.94 I would argue that no

real wedding actually took place and Dido is at some level aware that this is the case, but it is

93 Desmond, 30 94 Desmond, 30

only because of her desperation for a wedding and to have Aeneas as her husband that she allows

herself to slip into the delusion that she is now his wife or at least in some status as equal to his

wife. I would back this up based on an observation that many who are in love tell themselves that

they are loved in return when in reality they are very clearly not. The buzzwords are there to

make Dido’s delusion seem a bit more credible. The reader is meant to know the truth but also to

understand what factors led Dido to her conclusion that there was a wedding. Unfortunate lovers

deceive themselves based on thin excuses and exaggerated evidence. Key words and phrases

such as ‘forever’ or ‘I love you’ etc. can get thrown around in the bedroom, but as the infelix

know, those sweet nothings don’t necessarily mean anything in the long run and the sentiments

don’t often last more than a month if they don’t disappear by the next morning. We have seen

before that Dido has already discussed a marriage with Aeneas with her sister, so we can infer that this is something Dido would have hoped would happen.95

Things spiral quickly from there. Rumor has it that Dido and Aeneas spend every waking moment of the winter within each other’s arms. They are ‘turpique cupidine captos,’ ‘trapped by shameful lust’ having ‘regnorum immemores,’ ‘forgotten their own kingdoms’ (IV. 194). Dido has now fully transferred everything she cares about to Aeneas. She no longer has any control over the situation. She has come to exemplify the statement of Elise P. Garrison:

The physical and psychological dependence of females on males was so socially ingrained that the female personality and social function was only complete in its relationship to the male. 96

95 It is easy to imagine a conversation that could arise between the two sisters after the events in the cave take place. “Well,” Anna might say, “are you married now?” Dido might blush knowing the truth and then respond, “I mean we pretty much are. There was lightening and nymphs wailing so clearly in the eyes of the gods we are married, and that is as good as a legal marriage can get.” That is an imagined conversation of course, which probably did not occur, but at least one can see the faulty logic Dido might have followed and the words that led to that conclusion. 96 Garrison, "Suicide in Classical Mythology: An Essay”

Dido is no longer complete on her own. She is complete only through having a relationship with

Aeneas. Because this relationship is highly unstable, the risks are high and the results will be

disastrous. If she loses this relationship, she loses everything that makes life worth living. This is

exactly what happens and we find that instead of a whole, complete person like she used to be,

Dido is left as a gaping shell of an individual alive in that she is breathing, but in a mental state

she perceives as being worse than death.

The gods swiftly intervene in this relationship on behalf of Aeneas. No thought is given

to Dido and what will remain of her life. The gods convince Aeneas to leave the city, and he sets

out arranging his departure. He mistakenly waits too long to convey his plans to the queen and as

a result she is furious. Dido experiences furor in every sense of the word. Even before she hears the news she is described as furentem (IV. 283). This is a combination of foreshadowing as well

as another signal of Dido’s deterioration. The full destructive power of love has taken over her.

She is now completely out of control, something a Roman reader would find very distasteful, but

something a reader might begrudgingly identify with in their secret heart.

When she hears the news though, her fury intensifies. She is mad; she is raging; she is

driven crazy by outrage. She is compared to an out of control Bacchante:

saevit inops animi totamque incensa per urbem bacchatur, qualis commotis excita sacris Thyias, ubi audito stimulant trieterica Baccho orgia nocturnusque vocat clamore Cithaeron.

She rages, bereft of sense, and raves inflamed throughout the whole city Just as a Bacchante, stirred up by the shaken sacred vessels, When the biennial orgies excite her, Bacchus being heard, And Cithaeron at night calls her with its cry. (IV. 300-303)

Before we saw Dido wandering through the city, moping and helpless like a wounded animal. In this moment, she isn’t grieving so much as she is raging. She is very much a woman scorned, determined to tear down anything that gets in her way. She finds Aeneas and accuses him with similar language she used to describe her first husband’s death. She calls him perfide, faithless (IV. 305). At the beginning of the book concerning Sychaeus she says:

postquam primus amor deceptam morte fefellit;

after my first love cheated me having been deceived; (IV.17)

This is her second time being deceived by a lover, so it is little surprise that she will take it even worse. At least before, she might have taken solace in the fact that her husband did not want to leave her. This time, however, there is no ambiguity. Aeneas is choosing to leave her even after she had given him everything she had to offer. In a way she has already committed suicide within herself. She has sacrificed the welfare of her kingdom, of her personal physical self, and of every good quality of character she once possessed. She has given all of that up for the sake of another who then forsakes her. She scrambles to find something to hold onto, something that will bring him back:

nec te noster amor nec te data dextra quondam nec moritura tenet crudeli funere Dido?

Neither does our love nor you right hand once given, Nor Dido doomed to die by a cruel death hold you? (IV. 307-308)

In this tricolon crescens, Dido begins with pleading their love. When that will not do she appeals to a bond of fidelity between them. Finally she either threatens her own suicide or foreshadows it. At this point we know that she is distressed enough to consider the matter more fully than before. It’s a low blow to be sure to threaten to kill yourself if someone doesn’t stay.

While normally I would hesistate to pass moral judgements on the actions of literary characters

especially in antiquity where values greatly differ from today, I do feel confident, as someone

who has been there, in saying that it is truly an act of desperation as an ultimate last resort. A

statement like this is akin to blackmailing a person or sending them on a guilt trip. For the life of

me, I cannot think of any instance in any culture where this would be considered not highly

disgraceful behavior. In fact, it is a display of shamelessness and it shows a lack of pudor, which

I think would also resonate with a Roman audience as very much a base action.

Throughout the narrative Dido has and will continue to foreshadow her suicide. This can be seen as two things: first as mere foreshadowing, second as evidence as to how low Dido has fallen. As stated before, it takes a great lack of pudor to threaten someone with your own suicide, and right now these seem to be mere threats and shallow wishes. We will see that her ultimate resolution to die comes far after her warnings to others of her upcoming death. I would propose that this is about as far a cry for help as one can get to in antiquity without actually going through with the action. Were more modern, unreliable methods of suicide available to her, I would imagine that she would first attempt those in order to get the desired attention and results. It is only after she sees that she has no other option that she truly commits herself to death. Even when she first hinted that she might die very soon, I do not actually think that was her intention to do so. While the audience knows that this will be the end result, Dido is imagining that as a result of these threats and warnings, there is a possibility that Aeneas or somebody else will see her in her state of ultimate distress and give her what she needs in order to keep living.

When her death-threats remain fruitless, she refers back to their marriage vows:

per conubia nostra, per inceptos hymenaeos,

By our marriage, by the nuptials having been begun, (IV.316)

It would seem now that she is in such a state of despair and hopelessness that she has moved

herself to the point in which she believes the delusion that she and Aeneas are married. There is discussion as to what exactly took place in the cave that caused her to be so convinced that they were married. Whether some sort of ancient rite happened or it did not, we don’t really know. It isn’t too far of a stretch to suggest that Dido was very capable of convincing herself of something that wasn’t real like a marriage. It is a thing that people tragically in love do when they make more out of a situation than what is there. Instead of seeing her relationship with

Aeneas for what it is – an unofficial love affair – she makes it out to be more beautiful and more meaningful by calling it a marriage. In this way, she is able to comfort herself both from her sin of breaking her vow to her late husband and from the very real possibility that she loves him much more than he loves her. It is quite easy to pass judgement on Dido for giving in so easily to delusions like this, but one mustn’t be so quick to ridicule her for it.97 While usually not taken to the extreme of pretending that there has been a marriage, it is not uncommon for those unlucky in love to make things out to be more than they are, especially when they so desperately want them to be so. As we have seen before, Dido is unashamedly desperate and rightfully so.

Because of her affair with Aeneas, everyone hates her, including the Tyrians:

te propter Libycae gentes Nomadumque tyranni odere, infensi Tyrii; te propter eundem exstinctus pudor et, qua sola sidera adibam, fama prior. cui me moribundam deseris hospes (hoc solum nomen quoniam de coniuge restat)?

On account of you the gates of Libya and the princes of the Nomads Hate me, the Tyrians are hostile; on account of you, the same My honor is lost, and that by which alone I was ascending to the skies, My former reputation. To what do you leave me about to die, my guest? Since this title alone remains from that of a husband? (IV. 321-324)

97 See footnote 71

Not only that, but her pudor is lost. This is Dido admitting out loud what we have seen made evident by her actions. Kaster sees this type of pudor as a “discreditable extension of the self.”98

The discreditable part is when one gives free reign to one’s appetites like sex or luxury or even a combination of the two. When Dido indulges her appetite for luxurious sex she neglects her fides and thus her pudor. Kaster notes that Dido is the paradigm of this.99 At the loss of her pudor,

Dido would find it very difficult to make a recovery. How do you regain face after threatening your lover that you would kill yourself if they don’t stay? There’s no coming back from that, at least not in full. This is the very last card Dido has to play, and it is useless. The good reputation she had built up for herself as a queen and single ruler is gone as well. No one has a good reason to respect her anymore as she cannot even respect herself. It is in part because of this that she is so ready to die. She throws the title hospes back in Aeneas’ face in an attempt to remind him what he owes her. She is responsible for his safety and success in Carthage. Without her, he would probably be dead. And how has he repaid her? Only it seems by breaking her heart. At the very least, she says, he could have left her with a child:

saltem si qua mihi de te suscepta fuisset ante fugam suboles, si quis mihi parvulus aula luderet Aeneas, qui te tamen ore referret, non equidem omnino capta ac deserta viderer.'

If at least some offspring had been born for me from you Before your flight, if any little Aeneas were playing for me in the hall, who might represent you however in countenance, Indeed I should not seem wholly betrayed and deserted. (IV. 327-330)

She might wish for this child for a variety of reasons. The first reason is that a child would at

least give her a more proper place in society. If Dido cannot function as a single woman because

98 Kaster, 42 99 Kaster, 45

there is no room in society for that, she would then need to have some sort of womanly role to play in order to fit in and be fulfilled. While it is not ideal having a child without a husband, it is certainly better than having neither husband nor child. The second reason could be that she hopes that if she had a son by Aeneas, he might be more inclined to stay. She doesn’t say this outright because she wants him to think that she would be satisfied with just this little bit when in reality she probably would have used a child against him in order to keep him from leaving or taken the

Medea route and used the child as vengeance instead of a bargaining chip.

In response to this, Aeneas is a bit taken aback. It is quite possible that he has been ignorant of her feelings this whole entire time, but that is rather unlikely as we have seen how unsubtle

Dido is especially regarding Aeneas. It is more likely that he knew of her feelings but was unaware of how deep they ran and what the consequences of them would be. He attempts to defend himself and justifies his actions based on his understanding of a lack of marriage agreement:

pro re pauca loquar. neque ego hanc abscondere furto speravi (ne finge) fugam, nec coniugis umquam praetendi taedas aut haec in foedera veni.

A few words I will speak in accordance with the case. I neither hoped (do not imagine it) To conceal this flight by stealth, nor did I ever hold the marriage torches of a husband or enter into these agreements. (IV. 337-339)

Imagine the insult Dido must have felt at these words. It would be enough to make one heave after having devoted the entirety of her soul to a person only to hear their words spoken from their mouth saying that they did not feel at all the same way. It’s not a nice thing to hear at all, but while Dido didn’t want to hear it, she perhaps needed to hear it. A misunderstanding like this and the confusion on the part of the reader would have been better cleared up if there was more to the cave scene, if only some dialogue between Dido and Aeneas talking about their

relationship. Dido talks to herself about her relationship with Aeneas and she talks to her sister about it, but it is only at this point that we ever get word from Aeneas on what his relationship with Dido meant for him. Page duBois has further insight into what Dido is to Aeneas. DuBois says that Dido is an outlet for Aeneas’ repression, for Aeneas is ‘the hero of repression, of civilization and its discontents, or the sublimation of desire and the production of human artifacts.’100 Dido is his foil, his exact opposite. DuBois likens her to Ajax and says that they represent the type of heroism Aeneas can never know.

Aeneas’ words offer no consolation for Dido. She rolls her eyes (IV.363) and speaks to him angrily:

'nec tibi diva parens generis nec Dardanus auctor, perfide, sed duris genuit te cautibus horrens Caucasus Hyrcanaeque admorunt ubera tigres.

‘neither was a goddess mother to you nor Dardanus the originator of your race, Faithless one, but bristling Caucasus bore you on its harsh crags And Hyrcanian tigresses gave you their udders. (IV. 365-367)

At this point she is just digging for ways to insult or hurt him. It’s another low blow, but it is not surprising that she would insult his mother. His mother first of all is responsible for bringing him into the world and any insult to her is an insult to him. Second of all, she is the goddess of love, and love, as we have seen, is the ultimate reason for Dido’s misery. Several lines later, Dido admits that the cares of the gods are with Aeneas, not her. Since they will not grant her justice, she will have to do it herself as an avenging spirit.

his medium dictis sermonem abrumpit et auras aegra fugit seque ex oculis avertit et aufert, linquens multa metu cunctantem et multa parantem dicere. suscipiunt famulae conlapsaque membra marmoreo referunt thalamo stratisque reponunt.

100 duBois, 16

With these words she breaks off her speech in the midst, And sick at heart, she shuns the air, and turns away, and withdraws from his eyes Leaving him hesistating through much fear, and preparing to say Many things. Her maidservants lift her up and carry back her fainting limbs To her marble chamber and lay her down on the couch.

Here Dido breaks off mid-speech again as we have seen her do before when she was showing

Aeneas around her city. This time the circumstances are different, but the illness is still the same.

Again Virgil uses the language of sickness or illness when describing Dido as aegra. Desmond says that there is a definite connection between the “health” of Dido and the prosperity of

Carthage.101 In her book, she puts ‘health’ in quotation marks as if to imply that the health of

Dido is not really at stake. I would very much argue against that. She is very clearly mentally ill and anyone with a serious mental illness will know the physical toil it can take on the body.

Depression can trigger a series of behaviors that can lead to very real illnesses if left unchecked.

The troubled individual can lose sleep, lose appetite, and lose a care for personal appearance and hygiene. Without these, they are putting themselves at a high risk for a lowered immunity leaving them vulnerable for catching very real diseases.

Virgil says that Dido flees the air. That could mean that she is simply wishing to no longer be in the same area as Aeneas thereby sharing his air, or it could be a precursor to her later suicide.

She no longer wishes to be breathing. This could be a wish that she is feeling or she could literally be holding her breath in and refusing to breath. It would make sense then for him to be frightened at that, not to mention her hate-filled words. Whether Dido is letting herself breath or not, she is so weak after all this distress that she has to be carried back by her maidservants. One can immediately jump at the fact that she has to be carried back and say that Virgil is portraying her as a weak and delicate female character. He could be doing that. It is believable though for

101 Desmond, 30

her to be in such pain that she is falling over. She is in the middle of a mental and physical breakdown. She is physically heartsick. One can imagine her barely being able to make it through her speech to Aeneas without breaking down sobbing. Once that has started, it would take an amazing strength to remain standing. Instead she is no longer able to hold herself upright.

This isn’t weak or necessarily delicate behavior. What this shows instead is the immense power of pain that love can bring. This seems to be the picture of Dido Virgil wants to be presenting.

He wants the reader to be able to sympathize with her. So the next lines are thus:

quis tibi tum, Dido, cernenti talia sensus, quosve dabas gemitus, cum litora fervere late prospiceres arce ex summa, totumque videres misceri ante oculos tantis clamoribus aequor! improbe Amor, quid non mortalia pectora cogis! ire iterum in lacrimas, iterum temptare precando cogitur et supplex animos summittere amori, ne quid inexpertum frustra moritura relinquat.

What feelings were to you, Dido, then beholding such things? Or what groans did you utter when from the lofty citadel you did behold The shores boil far and wide, and did see the whole Ocean disturbed before your eyes by such great shouts! Cruel Love, to what do you not compel human hearts! Again she is compelled to go into tears and again to make trial of beseeching, And as a supplicant to yield her soul to love, that she may not leave anything untried about to die in vain. (IV.408-415)

So even though Dido is unlucky and she is the unfortunate one that these miseries must happen to, Virgil is sympathetic enough with her plight so as to invite the reader to identify with her. He even calls out Love as the source of these problems. Dido is forced to yield to Love.

Virgil asks the question “what feelings were to you, Dido?” to which the reader is supposed to imagine the answer. To those readers having never experienced love and loss of this magnitude, they might imagine some sort of extreme sadness or disappointment. Dido though, probably feels more than that. There is probably a turmoil within her, a mix of emotion that physically pains

her. She undoubtably feels used, since she has given Aeneas everything he could possibly want from her, and apparently he has taken that and left without realize the gravity of her sacrifice for him. Not only did she sacrifice her resources, but also her reputation, which she so very much valued and which was one of the few things keeping her secure as a single and desireable queen.

She undoubtedly feels hatred, as we have seen she is filled with fury. These destructive feelings would certainly conflict with her feelings of love for Aeneas. She is probably left grappling with her own emotions unable to decide whether she wants to hold him or strangle him. Finally it would seem that she has given up hoping that he would change his mind completely and things would return to the way that they were.

Dido asks her sister to appeal to Aeneas yet again. She says that she no longer asks for him to stay with her as her husband, she just needs some time and space to grieve.

quo ruit? extremum hoc miserae det munus amanti: exspectet facilemque fugam ventosque ferentis. non iam coniugium antiquum, quod prodidit, oro, nec pulchro ut Latio careat regnumque relinquat: tempus inane peto, requiem spatiumque furori, dum mea me victam doceat fortuna dolere. extremam hanc oro veniam (miserere sororis), quam mihi cum dederit cumulatam morte remittam.'

Where to is he hurrying? Let him grant this as a last gift to his wretched lover: and let him wait an easy flight and wafting winds. I no longer ask for the old marriage ties, which he has betrayed, nor that he be deprived of fair Latium and abandon his realm: I ask mere time, a respite and a breathing space for my passion, until my fortune may teach me, subdued, how to suffer. This I ask as a last favor (pity your sister), when you have granted it to me, I will return it crowned by my death. (IV.429-436)

Her request seems simple enough: time and space. She says if she can get just this, she’ll be okay for now. Here again she seems to be deluding herself thinking she will be satisfied with time and space. Like her wish for a child before, she would probably use this against Aeneas in the end,

making use of this extra time in another attempt to make him stay forever. Then again, she really does need a respite from her passion.

Anna goes along with what her sister wants, which is a good indicator that she is a bad counselor. Other than her initial advice to shirk her vows and go after Aeneas, Virgil never has specifically bad counsel coming directly from Anna. It comes instead indirectly, and the reader only sees the results of her actions, or rather her inactions. As a good counselor, Anna should have tried to be the self-control that Dido no longer possessed for herself, even if it meant arguing against the queen. She doesn’t do this though, but she simply complies with all her sister’s wishes even though her sister is not in the right state of mind at all and clearly does not know what is best for herself.

Talibus orabat, talisque miserrima fletus fertque refertque soror. sed nullis ille movetur fletibus aut voces ullas tractabilis audit; fata obstant placidasque viri deus obstruit auris. ac velut annoso validam cum robore quercum Alpini Boreae nunc hinc nunc flatibus illinc eruere inter se certant; it stridor, et altae consternunt terram concusso stipite frondes; ipsa haeret scopulis et quantum vertice ad auras aetherias, tantum radice in Tartara tendit: haud secus adsiduis hinc atque hinc vocibus heros tunditur, et magno persentit pectore curas; mens immota manet, lacrimae volvuntur inanes.

With such words she was entreating, and such lamentations the most wretched sister both carries and carries back: but by no lamentations is he moved, nor does he listen graciously to any words; the fates oppose, and the god blocks up the kindly ears of the hero. And as when Alpine north winds strive with each other to uproot with blasts, now on this side and now on that, a stout oak with wood full of years a din goes forth, and the stem being shaken the high leaves strew the ground; itself clings to the rocks and as high as it stretches with his head towards the air of heaven, so deep does it reach with its root to the lower regions; not otherwise is the hero beaten this side and that by constant words and feels cares in his great breast his mind remains unmoved; and tears roll down in vain.

(IV.437-449)

Here is where we find again another use of haereo, describing in a metaphor how unmoved and fixed Aeneas is. Nothing is able to move him, due largely in part to the gods’ help. Although he is described as feeling care for her because of her pleading, he is unable to be moved. The gods though do not seem to have any type of sympathy at all for Dido and her plight. Like she is to

Virgil in a lot of ways, she is a pawn in the larger plot of the story. Virgil does, however, as we have recently seen, show some compassion for her. Aeneas potentially would feel strongly enough to change his course for her, but the gods stop up his ears. Page duBois suggests that this is supposed to echo back to Odysseus stopping up his ears so as to resist the sirens.102 The sirens hold a very literal death for Odysseus, and Dido, while potentially as appealing as the sirens, holds death for the fate of Rome. While Aeneas might live out the rest of his life, perhaps even happily, with Dido, he would neglect his fate to found what would become Rome. So tears roll down in vain. These are probably Dido’s tears. She unfortunately doesn’t realize how big of a role the gods are playing and is left to assume that Aeneas simply doesn’t care at all for her.

After being refused such a seemingly small request as this, a request that is even backed up by the logic of waiting for a more favorable wind, she feels even more used, more hopeless, more distraught.

For the reader who has been in a state of emotional turmoil such as this, it is very easy to recall the feelings of sheer exhaustion that warring emotions wreck on the body. Couple that with the actual physical exhaustion of tears and one can easily see how Dido could quickly tire of living. She has been crying this entire time. Her fainting limbs would indicate that she is doubled over in agony, crying until she can’t cry anymore. These would not be quiet teardrops falling

102 duBois, 15

onto her pillow. This would be ugly sobbing with screams of pain like someone wounded on the battlefield. For the one in pain, they would very much feel like they had been physically stabbed in the gut and had their insides twisted around. You cry and cry and cry until you are left choking on your own tears, dry heaving, and unable to physically get up off of the floor. This type of pain quickly drains the body of strength rendering it unable to think of anything but death. These constant thoughts of death can be very frightening.

It is often the case that suicide victims, especially those who die for desperate reasons, do not enter into the suicide process hoping that death will be the outcome. It is often the case that they are left thinking it is really and truly the only way out. The road that leads one to these conclusions is extremely terrifying. You know what is going to happen, and though you do everything in your power to stop it, you can’t. The next lines show that this is exactly the state that Dido is in:

Tum vero infelix fatis exterrita Dido mortem orat; taedet caeli convexa tueri. quo magis inceptum peragat lucemque relinquat, vidit, turicremis cum dona imponeret aris, (horrendum dictu) latices nigrescere sacros fusaque in obscenum se vertere vina cruorem; hoc visum nulli, non ipsi effata sorori. praeterea fuit in tectis de marmore templum coniugis antiqui, miro quod honore colebat, velleribus niveis et festa fronde revinctum: hinc exaudiri voces et verba vocantis

Then unlucky Dido frightened at her fate Prays for death; it wearies her to see the arch of heaven. That more she may accomplish her design and relinquish life, When she would lay offerings upon the altars burning with incense, (horrible to be told) the sacred waters grow black And the wine poured out changes itself into loathsome blood; She told this vision to no one, not to her sister herself. Besides a shrine of her former husband of marble was in the palace which she reverenced With wonderful honor, bound with snowy fillets of wool and with festive leaves. From this voices and the words of her husband calling her seem to be heard:

(IV. 450-460)

Again Dido is weary of gazing at the vault of heaven. Looking at the sky only means that the pain is not over for her. Another sunrise means having to endure another day of unbearable heartache. Another sunset means another night of crying herself to an unrestful sleep. She knows her fate and is terrified by it. The things that confirm that this is her fate are perhaps even more frightening than actual death itself. Sacred waters are turning black; wine is turning to blood. Not only that by the shrine to her dead husband is calling out to her, beckoning her to join him in the afterlife. He could be in a sense calling her because her place in society must be beside him as her husband. These visions would haunt her in the daytime when she is undoubtedly praying to the gods for these things not to happen. The next lines show that she has turned to prophets seeking out answers as to what the fates have in store for her only to be more frightened by the answers she is given. Not only that but Aeneas visits her in her sleep in the form of a nightmare, and she is unable to escape her pain both when waking, when watching the Trojans prepare their ships to sail, and in the nighttime when she is haunted by visions of her former lover:

multaque praeterea vatum praedicta priorum terribili monitu horrificant. agit ipse furentem in somnis ferus Aeneas, semperque relinqui sola sibi, semper longam incomitata videtur ire viam et Tyrios deserta quaerere terra,

And the solitary owl often seemed to complain with a dismal song on the house-tops And to draw out his long nots in lamentation; And besides, many predictions of pious prophets terrify her by their terrible warning. Aeneas himself disturbs her raving in her sleep; and always she seems to herself To be left alone, and always to be going on a long journey unattended And to be seeking her Tyrians in a desert land, (IV. 464-468)

Here we see exactly what her nightmares include. She is probably reliving her final moments with Aeneas over and over again with his coldness being more exaggerated and crueler

than it was when it originally happened. For a modern reader who has never heard the lonesome

song of an owl, the sound of a midnight train will suffice for the sake of imagination. The song

reminds her of how alone she really is. In her dreams, she is left all by herself without a man in

her life seeking to be reunited with her beloved Tyrians who are now hostile to her. This shows

us that she is longing to go back to the way things were even before she met Aeneas. She was

alone before, but not as she is now. Even when she did not have a husband giving her a place in

society, she had her Tyrians to whom she was beloved. They were the ones who gave her

purpose the way a husband would have given her purpose as a wife. She no longer has them

though. She no longer even has her sister whom she feels is the reason she got into this mess to

begin with.

Then there are the Furies who are haunting her the way they have haunted others before.

The Furies appear in Homer’s Iliad III.279 when Agamemnon calls upon them to ‘punish men

who have sworn falsely’103 and again in XIX.260 when Agamemnon calls upon them again with the exact same words.104 Dido has gone back on her oath to Sychaeus thereby deserving the wrath of the Furies driving her to her doom.

Ergo ubi concepit furias evicta dolore

Then when overcome with grief she has conceived the Furies (IV. 474)

It is after she has been tormented by these creatures that she begins to contemplate the time and manner of her death. This brings her a certain sort of hope that she puts on display for her sister:

decrevitque mori, tempus secum ipsa modumque exigit, et maestam dictis adgressa sororem consilium vultu tegit ac spem fronte serenat:

103 Homer, Iliad III. 279, ἀνθρώπους τίνυσθον ὅτις κ᾽ ἐπίορκον ὀµόσσῃ 104 Homer, Iliad XIX.260, ἀνθρώπους τίνυνται, ὅτις κ᾽ ἐπίορκον ὀµόσσῃ

And has determined to die, she considers with herself the time and the manner, And addressing her mournful sister with these words, she covers her design by her countenance and brightens hope in her face (IV.475-478)

It is here that I want to take a slight digression and discuss the warning signs of suicide and the factors that indicate a suicide risk. It is not Anna’s fault that she did not recognize the warning signs, but for the reader unfamiliar with them, it is good information to be equipped with that should prove to be valuable in the event that you come across someone at risk for suicide either in your personal life or in the classroom. The following are certain common behaviors that indicate suicide risk specifically as shown in the case of Dido: disrupted sleep patterns, increased anxiety and agitation, outbursts of rage or low frustration tolerance, any talk or indication of suicidal ideation or intent, and a sudden mood change for the better.105 The last of these, the sudden mood change, is perhaps at first the most overlooked warning sign a suicidal person can exhibit, but it is arguably one of the most important. A sudden mood change can indicate that a time for death has been chosen, a plan has been thought out, and the end is very near. This is especially true in Dido. Whether Virgil knew specifically that this was an indicator of suicide or not is unknown and perhaps improbable, but it is such an important and common warning sign that it has not changed for thousands of years. Anna overlooks this, believing that nothing worse will happen than the mourning that happened at the death of Sychaeus:

non tamen Anna novis praetexere funera sacris germanam credit, nec tantos mente furores concipit aut graviora timet quam morte Sychaei.

Anna nevertheless does not believe that her sister conceals her own death Under these new sacred rites; nor does she conceive the great fury to be in her mind Or does she fear worse things than [what happened] at the death of Sychaeus. (IV. 500-503)

105 Firestone

Aeneas’ abandonment of Dido is much different than Sychaeus’ death. In some ways it can be thought of as better and in others worse. Anna thinks that Aeneas’ departure is not as bad since Aeneas is alive and also since they were never married so therefore the ties of their love were not so strong. She is not accounting for exactly what all Dido has lost. Not only has she lost a lover, but also a kingdom and a secure sense of self and place in society. In loving Aeneas,

Dido abandoned her kingdom and her subjects, so when Aeneas left she was left with nothing.

When Sychaeus died she was able to take a vow so as to never marry again and spend the rest of her life devoting herself to building up her city and subjects. She now no longer has any subjects left to really rule as the majority have all turned hostile against her. At the death of Sychaeus, she was able to use this as an opportunity to build up a good name and reputation for herself, which she then threw away as soon as she consented with herself to pursue an affair with him. She didn’t just lose a lover, she lost her pudor, which is such an important concept to the ancient mind. In losing this she no longer is able to respect herself and has lost any and all feeling of self-worth. Lisa Firestone lists some of the common thoughts and feelings associated with suicide, which, although they are expressed in modern thought, still can be applied to antiquity: a person can feel extreme self-hatred telling themselves, “You don’t deserve to live.” They can feel personalized hopelessness “Nothing matters anymore. You should just kill yourself.” They can have thoughts of not belonging “You don’t fit in anywhere.” These thoughts are all part of the Firestone Assessment of Self-Destructive Thoughts (FAST), which was developed by the

Glendon Association as a valid tool to assess suicide potential.106

106 Firestone

Dido then begins her suicide and funeral preperations. In doing so, Virgil sets the stage with

a very intimate scene. First Dido is described as being crinis effusa, disheveled as to her hair107, which paints a picture in the reader’s mind of a woman not in her most polished state. This does a couple of things. First it is another outward sign of Dido’s inner turmoil as her unkempt appearance reflects her current state of mind. A common sign of depression is a sudden neglect of appearance and hygiene.108 This is something we have seen hinted at before in the scene in which Dido and company are getting ready for the hunt. Here now it is explicitly expressed.

Another thought this may evoke and is partially intended to evoke is the disheveledness of a person’s appearance after sex. This similarity is confirmed several lines down:

unum exuta pedem vinclis, in veste recincta,

having stripped one foot of its sandal, in a loose robe (IV. 518)

The image Virgil gives us here is the image of a beautiful woman, hair undone, clothes falling off, in a state of intense emotion spreading clothes and a phallic object upon a couch which once was a place where so much love was made:

At regina, pyra penetrali in sede sub auras erecta ingenti taedis atque ilice secta, intenditque locum sertis et fronde coronat funerea; super exuvias ensemque relictum effigiemque toro locat haud ignara futuri.

But the queen, a great funeral pile being erected under the air In the inner court of pine-wood and cut oak Both encircles the place with garlands and crowns it with funeral leaves; Above she places on the couch his clothes and the sword left by him And his image, not ignorant of what was to come. (IV. 504-508)

107 Virgil, Aeneid IV.509 108 "The Role of Teachers in Preventing Suicides”

Once the funeral pile has been prepared, Virgil spends six, maybe seven, lines detailing the state of peace the rest of the world in, and uses this to contrast and show the level of Dido’s anguish:

Nox erat et placidum carpebant fessa soporem corpora per terras, silvaeque et saeva quierant aequora, cum medio volvuntur sidera lapsu, cum tacet omnis ager, pecudes pictaeque volucres, quaeque lacus late liquidos quaeque aspera dumis rura tenent, somno positae sub nocte silenti. [lenibant curas et corda oblita laborum.]

It was night, and weary bodies through the earth enjoyed placid sleep And the woods and the raging seas were calm; When the stars are rolling in the midst of their course, When every field is still, beasts and variegated birds, Which far and wide occupy the liquid lakes and which occupy the fields Rough with brambles, stretched under the silent night Soothed their cares with sleep and their hearts were forgetful of their labor. (IV. 522-528)

This is an incredibly relaxing image and juxtaposing it against the lack of serenity in Dido stirs up intense emotions of jealousy and loneliness. Dido is seemingly the only one in the world, even of the raging seas, who is not getting any rest when all she wants at this moment is rest. She is forced to stay up all night listening to that song of the owl letting her know how much she does not belong here. While the world is granted peace and sweet slumber, Dido’s cares are redoubled and her passion intensifies. This is the opposite of what she wanted.

at non infelix animi Phoenissa, neque umquam solvitur in somnos oculisve aut pectore noctem accipit: ingeminant curae rursusque resurgens saevit amor magnoque irarum fluctuat aestu. sic adeo insistit secumque ita corde volutat:

But not so the Phoenician unhappy in mind, nor ever Is she relaxed in sleep, or does she receive nightly rest to her eyes or breast; Her cares redouble and love rising afresh again rages And fluctuates with a great tide of passions. Thus she persists and thus she revolves with herself in her heart:

(IV.529-533)

Dido before begged for peace and space for her passion, so that she might have time to

grieve. Instead fate gives her no rest and no peace. She actually gets the exact opposite of what

she wanted. Instead of peace, her cares redouble and she is wrecked with a fresh wave of passion

and presumably sobbing. Lack of sleep due to pain is enough to drive anyone mad. She spends

the entirety of the night grappling with the choices she does not have. She is a laughing stock to

her former suitors and she therefore cannot go to him to make alliances. She can’t follow the

Trojans due to her leftover obligations to her city that now hates her. She is weary, she is

desperate, and she longs for the peace that is only found in death.

This of course is Virgil’s representation of Dido in a literary work. She commits suicide

ultimately because it drives the plot. Were she free of this constraint, she could have options that

would prevent her from ending her life. In the Odyssey, Helen gives the men a drug “to quiet all pain and strife, and bring forgetfulness of every ill.”109. Were Virgil more sympathetic towards

Dido, he could very well have written that Dido too acquired this ancient anti-depressant. While it would not solve her woes, she would at least have gotten rest and peace from her passions.

Many people who contemplate suicide do not go through with it, not because they decide life is worth living, but because they do not wish to hurt their family members. Dido may have had this option, but she actually blames her sister for her troubles. Not only that but she goes through the same self-hatred talk as we have seen before expressed in FAST:

quin morere ut merita es, ferroque averte dolorem. tu lacrimis evicta meis, tu prima furentem his, germana, malis oneras atque obicis hosti.

But die as you have deserved and avert your grief by the sword.

109 Homer, Odyssey, 4. 219-221 ἔνθ᾽ αὖτ᾽ ἄλλ᾽ ἐνόησ᾽ Ἑλένη Διὸς ἐκγεγαυῖα:/αὐτίκ᾽ ἄρ᾽ εἰς οἶνον βάλε φάρµακον, ἔνθεν ἔπινον,/νηπενθές τ᾽ ἄχολόν τε, κακῶν ἐπίληθον ἁπάντων.

O sister, you first overcome by my tears, you loaded me destracted with these woes and exposed myself to my enemy. (IV.547-549)

So not only is Dido left without a husband, without a lover, without pudor, without good fama, without the love of her subjects, without the respect of her neighbors, but she is also left without the only family she really has left.

The scene then changes and we are brought to Aeneas who is restfully sleeping. He is awakened not by night terrors of Furies and former lovers, but by Mercury who urges him to leave Dido and her suffering. Mercury lets Aeneas know of the turmoil Dido is in and what exactly she is going through, but instead of letting him know this in order that he might help save her, he tells Aeneas this in order to encourage him to leave faster.

illa dolos dirumque nefas in pectore versat certa mori, variosque irarum concitat aestus. non fugis hinc praeceps, dum praecipitare potestas?

She [Dido] meditates wiles and dire wickedness in her breast Determined to die, and fluctuates with a various tide of passions. Why do you not flee from her hastily, while the power is yours to hasten away? (IV.563-565)

Page duBois says that part of the reason Dido’s later death is so important is that she must act as a scapegoat for Aeneas’ emotions. With her death, he is purged of emotions, especially the kind that Dido represents, that overpowering emotion of love and passion.110

The scene then shifts back to the queen and she is again in a state of sexualized distress:

terque quaterque manu pectus percussa decorum flaventisque abscissa comas 'pro Iuppiter! ibit

And striking her beautiful breast with her hand three and four times And tearing her yellow hair “O Jupiter, will he go?” (IV.589-590)

110 duBois, 14

Virgil then delves into her inner monologue and we are able to see exactly the war raging in

her mind. She has convinced herself that she has no where else to turn, that the situation is

entirely her fault, and that she deserves to die:

quid loquor? aut ubi sum? quae mentem insania mutat? infelix Dido, nunc te facta impia tangunt?

What am I saying? Or where am I? what madness turns my mind? O unhappy Dido, now do your wicked deeds touch you? (IV.595-596)

Catherine Edwards suggests that Dido is ultimately presented as being at fault.111 Most of the language though of Dido being at fault seems to come from the queen herself, and this is problematic if one wishes to judge who is to blame. It is important at this time to recall the sorts of thoughts that go through a person’s head who is at high risk for suicide. Self-hatred and self- blaming dominate any rational judgement. Dido, in her unhinged state of mind, is unable to be an accurate indicator of who is to blame. It may be that some of the fault is indeed hers since she did go back on her oaths, but she did so under the influence of amor and furor. Her furor is still raging in her mind and remaining in control over her as she debates how she wishes she could get revenge on Aeneas for the pain he has inflicted upon her:

non potui abreptum divellere corpus et undis spargere? non socios, non ipsum absumere ferro Ascanium patriisque epulandum ponere mensis?

Whom they report to have borne on his shoulders his father worn out with age! Have I not been able to tear his mangled body and to scatter it to the winds? Have I not been able to destroy his companions, not Ascanius himself with the sword And to place him to be eaten at his father’s tables? (IV.600-603)

111 Edwards, 183

Furor indeed is a powerful force. It has driven the once civilized queen into such a

deteriorated state that she is considering how she wishes she could cut up Ascanius and feed him

to his father. A couple of figures spring to mind at this point. The murder of a child in order to

exact revenge upon the father should bring Medea to mind. Page duBois says that this

comparison is justified because for a long time those who study the Aeneid have commented on

Dido’s similarities to heroines of tragedy, particularly those of Euripides.112 R. J. Edgeworth says that Medea is one of the principle models for Dido even though suicide is entirely absent from her story.113 Another is Hannibal who is said to have encouraged his men to eat human flesh like

Atreus. While it is not an exact comparison, Virgil is undoubtedly drawing upon the figure of

Hannibal when discussing Dido, so this would have been something that he could have considered.

Dido then delves into her curse upon Aeneas, which brings us to the discussion of love versus hate. Love and hatred can in some instances be two sides of the same coin as Catullus’ famous Odi et Amo. They are both driven by passion and can result in unhealthy obsession.

While the two are seemingly opposites, there is such a thin line between the two for the intense lover that it does not take much to cross. It is very likely that Dido is straddling these two emotions, with one taking hold of her one minute and the other the next. She never stopped loving Aeneas exactly, she is still consumed with that, but now hatred has also taken its hold on her and she is consumned with that as well. Her consumption by these warring emotions leaves very little sanity to her, if any at all.

Then Dido’s death scene really begins. Her death scene is rather curious especially in comparison with the cave scene due to the amount of detail and sensuality Virgil includes in her

112 duBois, 19 113 Edgeworth, 129

dying and excludes in her loving. Catherine Edwards gives a possible reason for this,

“Visualizing the suffering and death of a beautiful woman, the reader becomes a sadistic voyeur,

whose masculinity is reinforced or even constructed through this experience.”114 Edwards then notes the distinctive nature female deaths have in the Aeneid. For all the deaths in the entire

work, with the majority being those of men, they are all swift. The only two deaths that are

drawn out are not coincidentally the only two deaths of women, Dido and the Italian warrior

Camilla in Book 11. Edwards says that Camilla’s death has “a sinisterly erotic dimension” since

she is pierced through the nipple by a spear.115

That isn’t to say though that the amount of detail Virgil included when describing the death of Dido was supposed to morbidly arouse the reader. There is, nevertheless, a sort of sick pleasure that accompanies it and it is largely in part due to the deliberate sensual nature of the language:

At trepida et coeptis immanibus effera Dido sanguineam voluens aciem, maculisque trementis interfusa genas et pallida morte futura, interiora domus inrumpit limina et altos conscendit furibunda rogos ensemque recludit Dardanium, non hos quaesitum munus in usus.

But trembling and driven wild by these tremendous undertakings, turning her bloodshot eye, and stained on her trembling cheeks with spots and pale because of impending death, Dido breaks into the interior thresholds of the house and, bound to fury, she climbs up the high funeral pyres and she uncovers the Trojan sword, a gift not sought for these purposes. (IV.642-647)

Her appearance and her movements are highly erotic and sexualized. And it can be no coincidence that a sword is chosen as her instrument of death as it is phallic in nature. Her fatal

114 Edwards, 12 115 Edwards, 183

penetration by the sword makes the reader recall her sexual penetration. Here sex and death are

closely linked with one another, and as love, more specifically sex, is the ultimate cause of

Dido’s death, the linkage is not without reason. Not only that but her heart break because of

Aeneas takes a physical manifestation as she is literally stabbed in the heart by his sword. R.G.

Basto goes into great detail analyzing the role that Aeneas’ sword plays in Book 4 ultimately

saying that Dido’s use of the sword in her death allows her to obtain a heroic and warrior-like

end of her life. A deeper interpretation of the sword is that because of its placement in the

bedroom, it symbolized the end of Aeneas as a warrior and the beginning of his life as a lover.116

Another factor to take into consideration when examining the high level of detail in

Dido’s death is that Dido is not just Dido, but she is instead standing for Carthage, and a Roman reader would feel called to look on with satisfaction at the gruesome, slow, and painful death of her biggest foe. Edwards confirms this political linkage when she says that the erotically charged dead corpses of women such as Dido, Lucretia, and Cleopatra are made to stand as political symbols in Augustan Rome.117 In addition to representing Rome’s foreign enemies, Dido represents her internal foes, specifically that of adultery. Page duBois points out that there is an importance in the fact that Dido is not Aeneas’ wife but his partner in adultery. DuBois says that one of the reasons for her death is her incompatibility with Augustan ideology. Since moral reforms were a large part of Augustus’ plans of righting the empire, there must have been some concern expressed for issues such as adultery even in Virgil’s lifetime which actually came before the laws defending marriage.118 In the same way that Augustus would later banish from

Rome his daughter Julia for her crime of adultery, Virgil banishes Dido from life and sets her as

116 Basto, 335 117 Edwards, 201 118 duBois, 21

an example of the disaster that extramarital affairs bring to those, especially women, who

commit them.119

Dido then gives an account of her lifetime accomplishments, which one well forgets while getting caught up in the drama and intensity of her death. This recalls the ancient sentiment whereby the way you die dictates how you lived. Dido here seems to be fighting against that, wanting to reestablish the fact that she accomplished much good during her lifetime.

vixi et quem dederat cursum Fortuna peregi, et nunc magna mei sub terras ibit imago. urbem praeclaram statui, mea moenia vidi, ulta virum poenas inimico a fratre recepi, felix, heu nimium felix, si litora tantum numquam Dardaniae tetigissent nostra carinae.'

I have lived and I completed the course which fortune had given, and now a great image of me will go under the earth. I have established a renowned city, I have seen my walls [rise], having avenged my husband I have received the punishment from my brother, I would have been happy, indeed too happy, if only the Dardanian ships had never touched our shores. (IV.653-658)

This brings us back to the beginning of Dido’s story in which she is doomed the moment the

Trojans set foot upon her shores. The biggest difference between the historical narrative of Dido and Virgil’s account is the insertion of Aeneas and his followers into the story. Without them, the historical Dido dies an honorable death defending her honor as one who keeps her word. With the inclusion of the Trojans and the gods that accompany them, Dido is doomed to a disgraceful descent to a slow and painful death. Her final words are as follows:

Dixit, et os impressa toro 'Moriemur inultae, sed moriamur' ait. 'Sic, sic iuvat ire sub umbras. hauriat hunc oculis ignem crudelis ab alto Dardanus, et nostrae secum ferat omina mortis.'

119 duBois, 22

Dixerat, atque illam media inter talia ferro conlapsam aspiciunt comites, ensemque cruore spumantem sparsasque manus. It clamor ad alta atria: concussam bacchatur Fama per urbem.

She spoke, and having pressed her face on the couch, said "We shall die unavenged but let us die. Thus, thus it is pleasing to go under the shades. May he, the cruel Dardanian, drink up this fire with his eyes from the sea, and may he carry with him omens of our death." Thus she spoke, and the comrades see her, in the middle of such things, having fallen on the sword and and her hands spattered. The shout goes to the highest point of the atrium and Rumor shouts throughout the raging city. (IV.659-666)

Here Dido gives the specific reasons for wanting a funeral pyre although Aeneas doesn’t actually see the fire as an omen of her death. With this final language final language, Dido seems to place the blame for her sufferings on Aeneas and his apparent cruelty.

Lamentis gemituque et femineo ululatu tecta fremunt, resonat magnis plangoribus aether, non aliter quam si immissis ruat hostibus omnis Karthago aut antiqua Tyros, flammaeque furentes culmina perque hominum volvantur perque deorum. audiit exanimis trepidoque exterrita cursu unguibus ora soror foedans et pectora pugnis per medios ruit, ac morientem nomine clamat: 'Hoc illud, germana, fuit? Me fraude petebas?

The walls were roaring with lamentations and groaning and feminine wailing, The upper air resounds with much beating, not otherwise than if all of Carthage or ancient Tyre, should collapse with the enemy having been led in, and the raging flames are turned through the roof peaks of man and through those of the gods. Her sister, out of her mind, terrified by the rapid running, befouling her face with her nails, harming her chest with blows, heard, and rushes through the crowd, and she calls the one who is dying by name: "Was this what you were after? Were you asking me fraudulently?" (IV.667-675)

Finally we see Anna understanding the role she played in Dido’s death and she feels guilty for leading her to such impiety:

Hoc rogus iste mihi, hoc ignes araeque parabant?

Quid primum deserta querar? Comitemne sororem sprevisti moriens? Eadem me ad fata vocasses, idem ambas ferro dolor atque eadem hora tulisset. His etiam struxi manibus patriosque vocaui voce deos, sic te ut posita, crudelis, abessem?

Did that funeral pyre, did these flames, did these altars prepare this thing for me? Having been bereft, what bereavement shall I address first? You dying rejected your sister as a comrade? If you had called me to the same fate, then the same grief and the same time would have brought both of us to the sword. And so I built with these very hands and I called the ancestral gods with my voice so that I could be absent with you placed in this way, oh cruel one? (IV.676-681)

In a way the figure of Anna stands as a warning for those who take the role of beloved and trusted counselor, whether politically or personally. Dido’s death illustrates the consequences of bad advice and lack of attention paid to the one in need. Another indication of someone’s depression is their withdrawal from society into doing things on their own. Victor Castellani points out that early in Book 4, the two sisters do things together, but later, beginning around

560, Dido works alone and even suffers from nightmares centering on her feelings of solitude.120

Exstinxti te meque, soror, populumque patresque Sidonios urbemque tuam. Date, vulnera lymphis abluam et, extremus si quis super halitus errat, ore legam.' Sic fata gradus evaserat altos, semianimemque sinu germanam amplexa fovebat cum gemitu atque atros siccabat veste cruores.

You have extinguished both you and me, sister, and your people and your Siodonian ancestors and your city. Let me wash your wounds with water and, if any last breath should wander further let me catch it with my mouth." Thus having spoken, she climbed the high steps and having embraced her, she cherished her half alive sister in her bosom with a groan and she dried her black blood with her garment. (IV.682-687)

120 Castellani, 55

Castellani says that Anna’s prescence in this scene serves to bear its pathos, and that in her very last moments, Dido regains her dignity and composure.121

Illa grauis oculos conata attollere rursus deficit; infixum stridit sub pectore vulnus. Ter sese attollens cubitoque adnixa levauit, ter revoluta toro est oculisque errantibus alto quaesiuit caelo lucem ingemuitque reperta.

And she [Dido] having tried to lift her heavy eyes again collapses; and the wound stuck under her breast groans. Three times she, raising herself and leaning on her elbow, lifted herself, and three times she turned back onto the couch, and with her eyes wandering she sought the light in the high sky and [the light] having been found, she groans. (IV.688-692)

This is probably the spot in which Virgil is most erotically descriptive. The reader of this has a very clear picture of this beautiful, disheveled woman rising up and then falling back further impaling herself upon a sword, not once but three times, before sighing her last sigh.

Finally the gods take pity on Dido, for her long grief and her difficult death:

Tum Iuno omnipotens longum miserata dolorem difficilisque obitus Irim demisit Olympo quae luctantem animam nexosque resolveret artus. Nam quia nec fato merita nec morte peribat, sed misera ante diem subitoque accensa furore,

Then omnipotent Juno, having taken pity on her (Dido's) long grief and difficult death, sent Iris from Olympus, who would unfasten her struggling soul and tightly bound limbs. For since she perished not by fate, nor by a deserved death, but she died wretched before her day and having been inflamed by a sudden madness (IV.693-697)

Here, although Dido essentially is representing Carthage, Rome’s enemy, Virgil takes pity on her and admits that her death was not deserved and she died before her day due to a sudden madness. In the final moments of Aeneid 4, we are given the true cause of Dido’s suicide: furor.

121 Castellani, 56

Yes, she acted impiously. Yes, she neglected her pudor. These are all true, but they are not the very ultimate cause of her descent into depression, madness, and suicide. Furor is the true cause, and this furor has been brought about by Love. In addition to Aeneid 4 being used as an

explanation for why there is so much dissension between Rome and Carthage, it can also be used

as a warning for those who toy with love. For the lover, there is a clear example of the

destructive power of love, so that they might beware of their own feelings and watch that they

don’t get out of control and fall prey to furor. For the beloved, there is the lesson that must be learned namely how to deal with leaving someone furiously in love. Virgil implies that if this is not done properly, with care and compassion, the results can be so disastrous as to cause the pain and suffering for future descendants generations down the line.

Conclusion

Every 13 minutes a person dies by their own hand. According to the American Association of

Suicidology, for every one suicide, there are six survivors, people whose lives were affected by

the death. Modern statistics like this show how common suicide is. It touches almost everyone in

some way. According to the government in Oklahoma, it is within the responsibility of educators

to identify and help the young people at risk to the best of one’s ability.122 Teachers have a day- to-day contact with their students and often see them more than the student’s parents and sometimes even a student’s peers. This is especially true for students who spend most of their time alone away from their peers, which puts them at an even higher risk for suicide. Many schools, especially high schools, create structures that can support a teacher’s efforts to safeguard the health and safety of the students.

Sometimes it is only teachers who, when assessing a student’s performance in the classroom, can see certain behaviors and warning signs that indicate something is wrong with the student.

For example a sudden deteriorating academic performance is a high indicator that something is very wrong. A student who has proven to be conscientious and diligent in their studies who all of a sudden is neglecting assignments, failing tests, or missing class throws up giant red flags that must be considered. While some teachers may consider getting involved with their students’ personal lives to be beyond their duties as an educator, they should consider intervening at the very least on behalf of the student’s education and classroom performance. It is not going beyond any lines to inquire of a student if there is something going on that is so drastically affecting their classroom performance, whether it is a personal reason or the way the material is being presented. In classes in which students are allowed to pick topics to write about or research, a

122 "The Role of Teachers in Preventing Suicides”

fixation with death or violence is a warning sign that a student could be going through something

drastic that is causing these fixations.123 That is not to suggest that these topics should be not written about or studied, but a watchful eye should be kept to make sure this fascination does not progress into something more drastic.

Research in the field of Classics can be an excellent outlet for these types of fixations. It can be a round about way of dealing with certain sensitive issues like suicide and death as well as certain life events that can put one on the road to depression and suicide such as rape, abortion, or even war. It is easier for some to deal with these issues when talking about antiquity because there is such a divide between the ancient and the modern. Even while it is not the preferred academic method to read one’s own issues into issues of the past, it can sometimes be even helpful in order to provide certain insight into the human condition, some aspects of which have not changed even over the course of thousands of years.

At a large university there are many sizes of classes even in the department of Classics. At

FSU, popular classes dealing with subjects like mythology or gender and sexuality can hold almost two hundred students. Then there are also smaller classes, more so in language classes which can hold as little as three or four students. It is illogical and irresponsible to assume, especially in the larger classes, that there are not students dealing with these sensitive issues.

Rape and suicide find their ways into many myths. When discussing these issues in a classroom setting, an educator must operate under the assumption that there is at least one student who has either dealt with an issue such as this in the past, is currently dealing with it, or knows someone very personally who is undergoing these sorts of trials. As such a certain sensitivity must be conveyed so as not to alienate or even trigger the student.

123 "The Role of Teachers in Preventing Suicides”

Book IV of the Aeneid is an especially popular book to be read particularly in translation

classes. That is why it is such a good example for an in-depth analysis that highlights exactly

how identifiable this book is to some and the sorts of emotions that it can invoke. For some it can

be akin to watching a sad movie and crying simply because the subject matter is sad and is

capable in and of itself of moving someone to tears. For others it can bring back memories or

cause emotions to resurface that can be devastating if left unchecked. St. Augustine, especially as

someone who has in the past considered suicide, perhaps sums up best the types of feelings that

can be evoked when studying this subject:

Whereas in the others, I was forced to learn the wanderings of one Aeneas, forgetful of my own, and to weep for dead Dido, because she killed herself for love; the while, with dry eyes, I endured my miserable self dying among these things, far from Thee, O God my life. For what more miserable than a miserable being who commiserates not himself; weeping the death of Dido for love to Aeneas, but weeping not his own death for want of love to Thee, O God. 124

Hundreds of years later, a girl found herself in a Latin III class reading selections from the

Aeneid. The parts that were read included specifically the death and suicide of Dido. After

working her way through the text in preparation for class, she found herself in a state of immense

distress as though an author thousands of years ago was speaking directly to her articulating her

own thoughts of suicide in a way she was unable to do. Instead of hating the material for causing

such emotions to rise up again within her after having discussed the material in class, she found

herself drawn to it instead, fascinated not necessarily by the suicide, but for the author’s deep

understanding of the human condition.

124 St. Augustine, Confessions 1.13.20-21 (Trans. E.B. Pusey) quibus tenere cogebar Aeneae nescio cuius errores, oblitus errorum meorum, et plorare Didonem mortuam, quia se occidit ab amore, cum interea me ipsum in his a te morientem, deus, vita mea, siccis oculis ferrem miserrimus. Quid enim miserius misero non miserante se ipsum et flente Didonis mortem, quae fiebat amando Aenean, non flente autem mortem suam, quae fiebat non amando te, deus.

Bibliography

Agerbo, Esben, Merete Nordentoft, and Preben Bo Mortensen. "Familial, Psychiatric, and Socioeconomic Risk Factors for Suicide in Young People: Nested Case-control Study." Bmj 325.7355 (2002): 74. Web.

Ard, Tom. "Deer Behavior." Telephone interview. 01 Jan. 2015.

Cairns, Francis. Virgil's Augustan Epic. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1989. Print.

Castellani, Victor. "Anna and Juturna in the "Aeneid"" Vergilius (1959-)33 (1987): 49- 57. JSTOR. Web. 03 Sept. 2014.

Desmond, Marilynn. Reading Dido: Gender, Textuality, and the Medieval Aeneid. Minneapolis, MN: U of Minnesota, 1994. Print.

Dubois, Page. "The φαρµακόσ of Virgil: Dido as Scapegoat." Vergilius (1959-) No. 22 (1976): 14-23. JSTOR. Web. 9 Sept. 2014.

Edgeworth, R. J. "The Death of Dido." The Classical Journal 72.2 (1976): 129-33. JSTOR. Web. 25 Feb. 2015.

Edwards, Catharine. Death in Ancient Rome. New Haven: Yale UP, 2007. Print.

Firestone, Lisa. "Suicide: What Therapists Need to Know." (n.d.): n. pag. American Psychological Association. Continuing Education in Psychology. Web. 14 Dec. 2014.

Garrison, Elise P. Groaning Tears: Ethical and Dramatic Aspects of Suicide in Greek Tragedy. Leiden: Brill, 1995. Print.

Garrison, Elise P. "Suicidal Females in Greek and Roman Mythology: A Catalogue." Diotima. Diotima, Oct. 2000. Web. 21 Aug. 2014.

Garrison, Elise P. "Suicide in Classical Mythology: An Essay." Diotima. Diotima, Oct. 2000. Web. 21 Aug. 2014.

Van Hooff, Anton J. L. From Autothanasia to Suicide: Self-killing in Classical Antiquity. London: Routledge, 1990. Print.

Kaster, Robert A. Emotion, Restraint, and Community in Ancient Rome. New York: Oxford Univ Pr, 2007. Print.

Kross, Ethan, Marc G. Berman, Walter Mischel, Edward E. Smith, and Tor D. Wager. "Social Rejection Shares Somatosensory Representations with Physical Pain." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. N.p., 10 Oct. 2010. Web. 23 Dec. 2014.

Marra, Realino, and Orru Marco. "Social Images of Suicide." The British Journal of Sociology 42.2 (1991): 273-88. JSTOR. Web. 03 Sept. 2014.

McIntosh, John L., and Christopher W. Drapeau. "U.S.A. Suicide: 2012 Official Final Data." (n.d.): n. pag. American Association of Suicidology. 18 Oct. 2014. Web. 3 Jan. 2015.

"The Role of Teachers in Preventing Suicides." Suicide Resource Prevention Center. OK.gov, 24 May 2005. Web. 24 Jan. 2015.