Excerpt from An Anonymous Epistle of Dido to Aeneas: Anthologia Latina 83, an Edition, With Introduction, Translation, and Notes By the majority of those who mention it, the poem is briefly dismissed as a mere rhetorical exercise. Palmer20 is the only one of its critics who allows it any merit. The choice of a theme already treated by Vergil and Ovid inevitably challenges com parison with the works of those poets, and such comparison is not to the advantage of our poem. Yet if we accept the au thor's own estimate of himself as modicas poeta,21 and keep in mind the narrow limits within which he confines his work, it is not altogether without charm and interest. While in a sense it is nothing more than a rhetorical exercise, a comparison with the dictiones referred to above shows that it is of much greater V length than they, and much more original in its treatment of the subject chosen. The poet doubtless had Ovid's epistle of Dido22 before him as 'his model. The setting in the story is the same as Ovid's, v namely the time when Dido asks her sister Anna to carry her appeals to Aeneas.23 The conception of Dido's character also v is Ovid's rather than Vergil's - she is gentle and forgiving, re signed to death. She reproaches Aeneas, it is true, after the manner of Vergil's heroine, but her remonstrances are only a mild echo of Vergil's passionate words, and her brief anger is soon suceeded by gentler emotion. Her last wish is for Aeneas' safety. The language, as well as the general treatment, is more suggestive of Ovid than of Vergil, as might be expected; for the former could be imitated much more easily by a writer of medi ocre ability. Again and again phrases occur which echo those of Ovid,24 showing that the author must have been sufficiently familiar with his works to reproduce his language unconsciously. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.