Iarbas Iarbas Iarbas, or Hiarbas, was a Roman mythological character, who has appeared in works by various authors including Ovid and Virgil. The character is possibly based on a historical king of Numidia. In Roman mythology, Iarbas or Hiarbas was the son of Jupiter Hammon (Hammon was a North African god associated by the Romans with Jupiter, and known for his oracle) and a Garamantian nymph. He became the king of Getulia. According to Virgil's Aeneid, he fell in love with the Carthaginian queen Dido, who rejected his advances in favour of Aeneas. Variations of the story were referred to by
Virgil and "Odyssey", the "Aeneid" follows the Trojan refugee Aeneas as he struggles to fulfill his destiny and reach Italy, where his descendants Romulus and Remus were to found the city of Rome. Virgil's work has had wide and deep influence on Western literature, most notably Dante's "Divine Comedy", in which Virgil appears as Dante's guide through Hell and Purgatory. Virgil's biographical tradition is thought to depend on a lost biography by Varius, Virgil's editor, which was incorporated into the biography by Suetonius and the commentaries of Servius and Donatus, the two great commentators on Virgil's poetry. Although the commentaries no