To what extent is Dido the victim in the opening book of the Aeneid?

This essay can connect to the A-Level course; Classical Civilisations and a book, The Aeneid.

To an extent dido is a victim in the opening book of the Aeneid, but it could be arguing that she is not to a large extent as there are also Aeneas and Juno who are also victims, or see themselves as such. She is also not the victim of the Aeneid as there are others who have been through just as much as Dido and who are shown to act or think in a way of that which more suits the idea of a victim, which as well as meaning “a person harmed, injured, or killed as a result of a crime, accident, or other event or action”, it could also mean “a person who has come to feel helpless and passive in the face of misfortune or ill-treatment.”

Dido’s past sets up her up as a victim. Her brother killed her husband, who she was “sick with love” for, over “blood lust for his blood” and then “deceived her with false hopes and empty pretences”. This sets her up as the victim as it shows the horrible past that she has had to live through. However, Dido is not acting like a victim here in the sense of the ‘victim mentality’ as she is taking action to change things and she is not pitying herself or wishing for things to be different or dwelling on her difficult past like Aeneas and Juno have been seen doing, for example. When Aeneas does get told of Dido does really say about her past in book one is in relation to Aeneas’ story: “I, too, have known ill fortune like yours and been tossed from one wretchedness to another until at last I have been allowed to settle in this land. Through my own suffering, I am learning to help those who suffer”. This may show that Dido is a victim, but it would also show that she is overcoming this. It is also It is also probable that Dido would not want to be seen as is a victim at all, especially as she is a queen and will need to seem powerful, and victims are not seen as that, especially in the sense of the victim mentality as she is taking action and change upon herself. This especially shows her strength given that at this time women were seen as very much less than men and did not often get the chance to do anything themselves. Therefore, depending on which way you look at it, it could be argued that Dido is a victim because she has had an awful past or that she has not been a victim because she is not passive or helpless and is taking action.

There are others who can be seen as the victims of the opening of the Aeneid. One example of this is Aeneas and, to some extent, his men too. This beginning of this is that they all have suffered greatly, losing family and friends in the battle of Troy and losing their homes with the final fall of Troy, and the storm that is set for them by Juno and Aeolus. This would make them as much as victims as Dido is, perhaps even more so, and then Aeneas ass to this sense of him personally being a victim by what he says in the midst of the storm: “Those whose fate it was to die beneath the high walls of Troy with their fathers looking down on them were many, many times more fortunate than I. O Diomede, bravest of the Greeks, why could I not have fallen to your right hand and breathed out my life on the plains of Troy…”

Juno is another of these characters that can be seen as a victim. The book lists the things that have been done against her; “there still rankled deep in her heart the judgement of Paris and the injustice of the slight to her beauty, her loathing for her the whole stick of Dardanus and her fury at the honours done to Ganymede, whom her husband Jupiter had carried off to be her cupbearer”. This shows that she is clinging to the bad things that have been done to her and that she sees herself as a victim to what the other people are doing. However, it could be argued that whilst she does have a certain victim mentality, she is still not a victim because she is not becoming helpless and passive like the definition of a victim states, and she is instead becoming angry and taking action against these that have made her angry.

In conclusion, Dido herself is not the main victim of the opening of the Aeneid to a large extent at all, as though she is the victim of bad things that have happened to her, things just as bad have happened to other people also, and she is not dwelling on the bad things that had happened in the past and developing a victim attitude which it can perhaps be said that Juno and Aeneas are.

Grade: A