I am not a big fan of romance novels or soap opera stories or anything of that nature. While reading through book IV that was all that I saw. It took everything I had to get through it. I got to thinking about the Punic Wars for some reason while reading, and I came up with an interesting thought, what if the problems that came about from Dido and Aeneas is what caused the rivalry between Rome and Carthage.
I don't think it is that far fetched because Dido is the founder of Carthage and Aeneas the founder of Rome. Also Dido and Aeneas were very romantically involved with each other, and Dido's entire life seemed to revolve around Aeneas. So naturally when she found out that Aeneas was leaving her to go start Rome in Italy, she was heart broken, and, we saw in her reaction to Aeneas leaving on pages 108-109, she became very bitter and probably started to hold a grudge on Aeneas. Aeneas does leave despite of Dido wanting him to stay. Dido, as a result, kills herself from grief. The people of Carthage then learn about Dido's death.
This is just hypothetical but what if the people of Carthage became mad at Aeneas and blamed him for their queen's death. If this is the case then this would be the start of Carthage and Rome being at odds with each other. I am pretty satisfied with this theory.
I commented on Ian's and Kaitlyn's post
While I agree with everything you said, I think Aeneas made the whole situation worse for not telling Dido everything and/or not telling her when he should have. He also did not tell her everything he felt which he tries but he gets the chance to say. The more we dive into their story the more mad I am at the gods.
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