Presented as part of the Centre for Classical Studies Seminar Series

The archaic Greek elegy is, as Saïd and Trédé remind us, a poetry of war and politics which Solon and Theognis in the sixth century invested with distinct moral character.

Here, I propose to re-examine Vergil’s description of Dido in book 4 of the Aeneid (esp. ll.369-76) in comparison with Propertius’ elegies where the mistress is represented as an irrational aggressor who tortures her lovers. Dido’s elegiac investment is, of course, designed to undermine her political leadership. Vergil’s description is revisited by Lucan (BC 1.324-35) who models his Pompey, weak and frenzied, on Vergilian Dido as much as the Propertian lover.

Eva Anagnostou-­Laoutides is a senior lecturer in Classical Studies at Monash. She holds degrees in Classical Studies from Aristotle University, the University of Leeds and the University of Kent at Canterbury as well as in Ancient History from Macquarie University. She has published extensively on various aspects of ancient mythology and religion and the appropriation in ancient political agenda. Her most recent book is In the Garden of the Gods: Models of Kingship from the Sumerians to the Seleucids (London and New York: Routledge, 2017). Recently she was awarded an ARC Future Fellowship on a project that examines Platonic inebriation and its reception in late antiquity and the Middle Ages.