Aeneas journey to come. However, the messenger god Mercury was sent by Jupiter and Venus to remind Aeneas of his journey and his purpose, compelling him to leave secretly. When Dido learned of this, she uttered a curse that would forever pit Carthage against Rome, an enmity that would culminate in the Punic Wars. She then committed suicide by stabbing herself with the same sword she gave Aeneas when they first met. After the sojourn in Carthage, the Trojans returned to Sicily where Aeneas organized funeral games to honor his father, who had died a year before. The company traveled on
Aeneid the entire passage of the poem, Aeneas who symbolizes "pietas" (reason) in a moment becomes "furor" (fury), thus destroying what is essentially the primary theme of the poem itself. Many have argued over these two sections. Some claim that Virgil meant to change them before he died, while others find that the location of the two passages, at the very end of the so-called Volume I (Books 1–6, the "Odyssey"), and Volume II (Books 7–12, the "Iliad"), and their short length, which contrasts with the lengthy nature of the poem, are evidence that Virgil placed them purposefully there. The "Aeneid"