ABSTRACT
Sister of Queen Dido of Carthage, whom she persuaded to yield to her passion for Aeneas, thus unwittingly bringing about Dido’s death. When the queen had resolved to kill herself, she made Anna help her to build a funeral pyre, without letting her know the purpose for which she intended it. After Dido’s death Anna fled to Malta and then to Laurentum, where Aeneas, married to Lavinia, had succeeded Latinus as king. Lavinia was jealous of Aeneas’ friendship with Anna, who in consequence threw herself into the river Numicius (or Numicus). She later reappeared and declared that she was now the nymph Anna Perenna. This story is Ovid’s; but another explanation he gives of the name of Anna Perenna is that she was an old woman who gave food to the Roman plebeians when they abandoned the city of Rome and went to live on the Sacred Mountain in protest against the abuses of the patricians.
