Dido, the first queen of Carthage, fell in love with the Trojan hero Aeneas. He had become stranded by her city with his fleet. When Aeneas had to leave again she threw herself onto a pyre she had built herself, piercing her own body with a sword left behind by Aeneas. That is how the ancient Roman writer Virgil (70 – 19 BC) told this love story. The moral is that by falling in love she betrayed her deceased husband, and she must die to atone for this.
