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
Aeneas is identical to Thor. This tale resemble some episodes of the Aeneid . Continuations of Trojan matter in the Middle Ages had their effects on the character of Aeneas as well. The 12th-century French "Roman d'Enéas" addresses Aeneas's sexuality. Though Virgil appears to deflect all homoeroticism onto Nisus and Euryalus, making his Aeneas a purely heterosexual character, in the Middle Ages there was at least a suspicion of homoeroticism in Aeneas. The "Roman d'Enéas" addresses that charge, when Queen Amata opposes Aeneas's marrying Lavinia, claiming that Aeneas loved boys. Medieval interpretations of Aeneas were greatly influenced by both Virgil and