Frescoes depicting Aeneas and Dido at the Archaeological Museum of Naples in Italy

Dido Abandoned, Pompeii, House of Meleager

Fresco - Water-based pigments on Coating (108 x 128 cm) 62–79 AD

Dido Abandoned Dido, Queen of Carthage, sits on her richly carved throne with a backrest covered in a long blue drape like the sea, where Aeneas' ship sails away behind the backs of the women who are unaware of what is happening.

Standing next to Dido, an African woman dressed in pink holds an elephant tusk, and a little further to the right, a young Alexandrian woman leans elegantly, wearing a small hat shaped like an elephant's head and decorated with small tusks.

We can see the head of a servant waving a flabellum, a fan attached to a pole, to cool the sovereign surrounded by these two elegant female figures representing Africa and Asia, the only continents known in Roman times.

Aeneas wounded, Pompeii, Casa di Sirico

Fresco - Water-based pigments on Coating (45 x 48 cm) 45-79 AD

Aeneas lifted his short warrior's tunic and bent his injured right leg slightly, leaning on his spear, while Lapyx, the doctor, knelt before him to extract the arrowhead embedded in his thigh with forceps.

Fresco of the wounded Aeneas, Pompeii, Casa di Sirico, Archaeological Museum of Naples

Aeneas wounded Aeneas remains calm and stoic, his gaze turned towards his mother Aphrodite who brings him dictamnus, her arm wrapped around the shoulders of her son Ascanius, who is crying and prefers not to look.

The forceps depicted in this fresco are identical to the bronze surgical instruments discovered in Pompeii.

This fresco illustrates a crucial moment from Book XII of the Aeneid entitled “The Final Battle”, in which King Turnus takes advantage of the situation to massacre the Trojan soldiers while Aeneas' wound is being treated.

As soon as the dictamnus picked by Venus on Mount Ida in Crete had stopped the bleeding and made the pain disappear, Aeneas took up arms again to return to battle, kissing Ascanius:

“Child, learn from me virtue and true courage; learn happiness from others. Today, my arm will defend you in battle and lead you to great rewards”.