History of Carthage as a goddess at Carthage. The Roman poet Virgil (70–19 BC) presents Dido as a tragic heroine in his epic poem the "Aeneid", whose hero Aeneas travels from Troy, to Carthage, to Rome. The work contains inventive scenes, loosely based on the legendary history of Carthage, e.g., referring to the then well-known story how the Phoenician Queen cunningly acquired the citadel of the Byrsa. In Virgil's epic, the god Jupiter requires the hero Aeneas to leave his beloved Dido, who then commits suicide and burns in a funeral pyre. This episode employs not only the history or legends narrated by
Virgil "Georgics" to Octavian upon his return from defeating Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC. The "Aeneid" is widely considered Virgil's finest work and one of the most important poems in the history of western literature. Virgil worked on the "Aeneid" during the last eleven years of his life (29–19 BC), commissioned, according to Propertius, by Augustus. The epic poem consists of 12 books in dactylic hexameter verse which describe the journey of Aeneas, a warrior fleeing the sack of Troy, to Italy, his battle with the Italian prince Turnus, and the foundation of a city