Aeneid in the whirlpool of Charybdis and driven out to sea. Soon they come ashore at the land of the Cyclopes. There they meet a Greek, Achaemenides, one of Ulysses' men, who has been left behind when his comrades escaped the cave of Polyphemus. They take Achaemenides on board and narrowly escape Polyphemus. Shortly after, Anchises dies peacefully of old age, and Aeneas sails to Carthage. Aeneas finishes his story, and Dido realizes that she has fallen in love with Aeneas. Juno seizes upon this opportunity to make a deal with Venus, Aeneas's mother, with the intention of distracting Aeneas from
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