Is the Aeneid based on a true story?
The Dido story is an invention and known as such at the time. Troy fell c. 1200 BC, and Carthage was not founded till 814. As for to the refugees’ journey to Italy, the Greeks usually considered civilised people they found in the W. Mediterranean as refugees from Troy. There are also stories that the Etruscans had migrated from Asia Minor. The Etruscans had a reverence for Aeneas. The Aeneas story itself probably stems from the incident in Book 21 of the Iliad when Achilles spares him because he is fated to survive the siege and father a line of kings. Nothing stated here about any emigration, mind.
