Carthage was the Roman Republic's greatest rival and enemy, and Virgil's Dido in part symbolises this. Even though no Rome existed in her day, Virgil's Dido curses the future progeny of the Trojans. In Italy under the Fascist regime, her figure was demonized, perhaps not only as an anti-Roman figure but because she represented together at least three other "unpleasant" qualities: feminine virtue, "Semitic race", and North African civilization. As an innocuous example: when Benito Mussolini's regime named the streets of new quarters in Rome with the characters of Virgil's "Aeneid", only the name "Dido" did not appear.