?

(troy in book 2 // latium in book 12)

do you ever think about how two queens die by their own hands for heroes that have abandoned them for warfare?

(dido in book 4 // amata in book 12)

do you ever think about how aeneas and turnus are mirror images of one another?

(aeneas in book 1 // turnus in book 12)

do you ever think about how the cycle of horrible echoes gives voice to the fact that the aeneid is a poem about trauma? a poem about a man who can't stop reliving the destruction of his city and of his life, and so brings ruin in his wake everywhere he goes? because i think about it a normal amount

because as vergil and his readers know, carthage was founded in 814 bce, and the trojan war ended in 1184 bce, 370 years too early for aeneas to actually run into dido. now there are a couple of ways you can deal with this: you can say that vergil moved the foundation of carthage 370 years earlier for the purposes of his story. or you can say that aeneas and his men travel to the 9th century when they go to carthage and then back to the 12th century when they leave for italy.

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