Taking Dido out of equation in the aneiad really will have little to no effect on the story. She
is similar to cerci and calypso in that all she does is serve as a distraction to the ultimate goal
which is founding Rome.
Dido instead serves as a sort of test for aneias placed by Juno in order to test how
determined he is to fulfil his goal.
Carthage is a partly built City and would be very easy for Aneas to settle there “All the work
had been started.” If Aneas was lazy he could have stayed with Didio and ignored the gods
therefore technically fulfilling his destiny. However Aneas doesn’t completely pass the test
as he stays there for a year “As the day was ending she called for more feasting.” Aneas day
by day is being lured further into Junos trap of “The city that was waiting for him.”
With the help of divine intervention he leaves, he does not leave on his own accord.
Mercury arrives and finds him “laying the foundations of the Citadel.” A god has to remind
him of his own destiny, The mighty aneas is lead astray by a women, something very
unheroic.
However Dido also serves another purpose and that is to highlight Aneas’s personality.
Aneas is such a kind and caring man he lives with as described a “queen long suffering from
loves deadly wound.” He stays and comforts her for a year and helps build the city. She
almost gives aneas another sort of purpose instead of his journey, she allows Aneas to open
up his heart again. Aneas gets so attaced to her that in book six in the underworld he is
distraught by her death and how he has caused it “in that instant he wept… I swear by the
stars, by the gods above, by whatever there is to swear by in the depths of earth it was
against my will.” Aneas is so grief-stricken by death he reacts like he loses a loved one, this
creates Pietas for aneas and highlights him as the perfect roman hero.