The depiction of Troy and Carthage in Virgil’s Aeneid is influenced by the very recent events of the civil war between the future Augustus and Mark Antony and Cleopatra. The orientalising propaganda directed against Cleopatra and her city of Alexandria has left its mark on the depiction of Carthage and Dido, whose temptations for Aeneas recall the temptations of Alexandria and Cleopatra for Mark Antony. The victory at Actium over Antony and Cleopatra represents the defeat of a threat of a Roman reversion to their Eastern origins in Troy.