ABSTRACT
This passage is likely to remain a challenge for future editors. Vergil has just been dealing with the various factors leading to Dido's frenzied state of mind: Finally, in her nightmares a savage Aeneas (ferus Aeneas) is chasing her (466): She is left totally alone while she is searching for her compatriots and likened to Pentheus. To quote Goold's translation: "even as raving Pentheus sees the Bacchants' bands (Euiadum . . . agmina), and a double sun and twofold Thebes rise to view; or as when Agamemnon's son, Orestes, hounded by the Furies (Poenis agitatus), flees from his mother, who is armed with brands and black serpents, while at the doorway crouch avenging Fiends".
