the part played by women and their position in society

• most memorable characters are Dido, Camilla and Amata
• they have great psychological make-up
• they act with daring and impose their own wills on the man's world of the hero
• add great emotional intensity and dramatic actions
• Aeneas is viewed in literature throughout the ages more in relation to Dido than as a Roman hero
• it is Juno and Venus who dominate activity on Olympus and are vividly characterised
• women are defined in relation to men
• they are wives, widows, mothers, daughters, sisters of victims of war
• there is a limited view of them in the Aeneid