Dido, Queen of Carthage (play) Dido, Queen of Carthage (play) Dido, Queen of Carthage (full title: The Tragedie of Dido Queene of Carthage) is a short play written by the English playwright Christopher Marlowe, with possible contributions by Thomas Nashe. The story of the play focuses on the classical figure of Dido, the Queen of Carthage. It tells an intense dramatic tale of Dido and her fanatical love for Aeneas (induced by Cupid), Aeneas' betrayal of her and her eventual suicide on his departure for Italy. The playwrights depended upon Books 1, 2, and 4 of Virgil's "Aeneid" as their main source. "Dido" is based
Political commentary of the Aeneid of Mars and a vestal virgin. According to the historian Livy, this vestal virgin's name was Rhea Silvia, who is described in Book I of the Aeneid as a descendant of Aeneas. Virgil establishes a stronger connection of Silvia to the Trojans by changing her name in the epic to Ilia. This new name connects her by its similarity to the name "Ilium", another name for the city of Troy, and because it is the feminine form of both Ilus (Aeneas' great-great-grandfather) and Ilus, the second name of Ascanius before the fall of Troy. Virgil also references Julius Caesar's claim