When Aeneas is forced to land upon the shores of Carthage
due to a storm, he is asked by the city’s Queen, Dido, to tell them of his and
the other Trojans’ adventures. He begins
by telling those around him of the fall of Troy
to the Greeks, who used a great wooden horse to sneak into the city. He gives them the story of how their king,
Priam, was murdered by the Greek warrior Pyrrhus, how Aeneas’ wife died, and
how he had to escape with his father, Anchises, and son, Ascanius, and a band
of warriors to avoid death. They then
went to Thrace,
but the spirit of Polydorous, Priam’s youngest son who was killed by the king
of Thrace,
warns them to flee and not settle there.
Instead, they went to the island
of Delos and the oracle of Apollo
there, who told them to find the land
of Aeneas’ birth. They were in Crete
before they realized that Italy
was their goal instead, but along the way, at the island
of Strophades, Harpies attacked
them and they could find no relief until they sailed for Actium
and then Buthrotum. That was where
Priam’s son, Helenus, and his wife, Andromache (the late, great warrior,
Hector, had been married to her), welcomed them and told them how best to reach
Italy. They sailed to Sicily,
and Anchises died in Drepanum on the way there.
They had begun to sail for Sicily
once again when the storm tossed them to the shores of Carthage.
The tale makes Dido fall for Aeneas, and they
sleep together with the help of the gods (which is marriage to Dido), but
Jupiter sets them off once more on their mission. Dido curses them before she kills herself,
heart-sick. The results of that curse
would become the Punic Wars. Another
storm sends them to Sicily a year
after Anchises’ death, and during their stay, the Trojan women burn the ships,
egged on by the goddess Juno. All but
four ships are saved by Jupiter’s rains, and they set off once more – this time
safely, as Aeneas’ mother, Venus, asks the god of the sea to make sure of their
safe passage. Aeneas and the others
arrive in Italy,
and he’s taken by a sibyl to the underworld to discuss Rome’s
future greatness. Latium
is where Aeneas settles, but all is not well – war breaks out thanks to
meddling Juno, ending only after the main antagonist in Latium,
Turnus, is defeated by Aeneas in single combat for the hand of the king’s
daughter.