The Phoenicians settled Carthage, in Africa, fifty years before the capture of Troy. Its founders were either Zorus and Carchedon, or, as the Romans and the Carthaginians themselves think, Dido, a Tyrian woman, whose husband had been slain clandestinely by Pygmalion, the ruler of Tyre. The murder being revealed to her in a dream, she embarked for Africa with her property and a number of men who desired to escape from the tyranny of Pygmalion, and arrived at that part of Africa where Carthage now stands. Being repelled by the inhabitants, they asked for as much land for a dwelling place as they could encompass with an ox-hide. The Africans laughed at this frivolity of the Phoenicians and were ashamed to deny so small a request. Besides, they could not imagine how a town could be built in so narrow a space, and wishing to unravel the mystery they agreed to give it, and confirmed the promise by an oath. The Phoenicians, cutting the hide round and round in one very narrow strip, enclosed the place where the citadel of Carthage now stands, which from this affair was called Byrsa (a hide).
[2] Proceeding from this start and getting the upper hand of their neighbors, as they were more adroit, and engaging in traffic by sea, like the Phoenicians, they built a city around Byrsa. Gradually acquiring strength they mastered Africa and the greater part of the Mediterranean, carried war into Sicily and Sardinia and the other islands of that sea, and also into Spain. They sent out numerous colonies. They became a match for the Greeks in power, and next to the Persians in wealth. But about 700 years after the foundation of the city the Romans took Sicily and Sardinia away from them, and in a second war Spain also.
DIDO
(Didô), also called Elissa, which is probably her more genuine name in the eastern traditions, was a Phoenician princess, and the reputed founder of Carthage. The substance of her story is given by Justin (xviii. 4, &c.), which has been embellished and variously modified by other writers, especially by Virgil, who has used the story very freely, to suit the purposes of his poem. (See especially books i. and iv.) We give the story as related by Justin, and refer to the other writers where they present any differences. After the death of the Tyrian king, Mutgo (comp. Joseph. c. Apion. i. 18, where he is called Matgenus ; Serv. ad Aen. i. 343, 642, who calls him Methres ; others again call him Belus or Agenor), the people gave the government to his son, Pygmalion; and his daughter Dido or Elissa married her uncle, Acerbas (Virg. Aen. i. 343, calls him Sichaeus, and Servius, on this passage, Sicharbas), a priest of Heracles, which was the highest office in the state next to that of king. Acerbas possessed extraordinary treasures, which he kept secret, but a report of them reached Pygmalion, and led him to murder his uncle. (Comp. Virg. Aen. i. 349, &c., where Sichaeus is murdered at an altar; whereas J. Malalas, p. 162, &c., ed. Bonn, and Eustath. ad Dionys. Pericg. 195, represent the murder as having taken place during a journey, or during the chase.) Hereupon, Dido, who according to Virgil and others was informed of her husband's murder in a dream, pretended that, in order to forget her grief, she would in future live with her brother Pygmalion, while in secret she made all preparations for quitting her country. The servants whom Pygmalion sent to assist her in the change of her residence were gained over by her, and having further induced some noble Tyrians, who were dissatisfied with Pygmalion's rule, to join her, she secretly sailed away in search of a new home. The party first landed in the island of Cyprus, where their number was increased by a priest of Zeus, who joined them with his wife and children, and by their carrying off by force eighty maidens to provide the emigrants with wives. In the mean time, Pygmalion, who had heard of the flight of Dido, prepared to set out in pursuit of her; but he was prevented by the entreaties of his mother and by the threats of the gods (Serv.ad Aen. i. 363, gives a different account of the escape of Dido); and she thus safely landed in a bay on the coast of Africa. Here she purchased (according to Serv. ad Aen. i. 367, and Eustath. l. c., of king Hiarbas) as much land as might be covered with the hide of a bull ; but she ordered the hide to be cut up into the thinnest possible stripes, and with them she surrounded a great extent of country, which she called Byrsa, from bursa, i. e. the hide of a bull. (Comp. Virg. Aen. i. 367; Servius, ad loc. and ad iv. 670; [p. 1007] Silius Ital. Pun. i. 25; Appian, Pun. 1.) The number of strangers who flocked to the new colony from the neighbouring districts, for the sake of commerce and profit, soon raised the place to a town community. The kinsmen of the new colonists, especially the inhabitants of Utica, supported and encouraged them (Procop. Bell. Vandal. ii. 10); and Dido, with the consent of the Libyans, and under the promise of paying them an annual tribute, built the town of Carthage. In laying the foundations of the city, the head of a bull was found, and afterwards the head of a horse, which was a still more favourable sign. (Virg. Aen. i. 443, with Servius's note; Sil. Ital. Pun. ii. 410, &c.) As the new town soon rose to a high degree of power and prosperity, king Hiarbas or Jarbas, who began to be jealous of it, summoned ten of the noblest Carthaginians to his court, and asked for the hand of Dido, threatening them with a war in case of his demand being refused. The deputies, who on their return dreaded to inform their queen of this demand, at first told her that Hiarbas wished to have somebody who might instruct him and his Libyans in the manners of civilized life; and when they expressed a doubt as to whether anybody would be willing to live among barbarians, Dido censured them, and declared that every citizen ought to be ready to sacrifice everything, even life itself, if he could thereby render a service to his country. This declaration roused the courage of the ten deputies, and they now told her what Hiarbas demanded of her. The queen was thus caught by the law which she herself had laid down. She lamented her fate, and perpetually uttered the name of her late husband, Acerbas; but at length she answered, that she would go whithersoever the fate of her new city might call her. She took three months to prepare herself, and after the lapse of that time, she erected a funeral pile at the extreme end of the city: she sacrificed many animals under the pretence of endeavouring to soothe the spirit of Acerbas before celebrating her new nuptials. She then took a sword into her hand, and having ascended the pile, she said to the people that she was going to her husband, as they desired, and then she plunged the sword into her breast, and died. (Comp. Serv. ad Aen. i. 340, iv. 36, 335, 674.) So long as Carthage existed, Dido was worshipped there as a divinity. (Sil. Ital. Pun. i. 81, &c.) With regard to the time at which Dido is said to have founded Carthage, the statements of the ancients differ greatly. According to Servius (ad Aen. iv. 459), it took place 40 years before the foundation of Rome, that is, in B. C. 794 ; according to Velleius Paterculus (i. 6), it was 65 years, and according to Justin (xviii. 6) and Orosius (iv. 6), 72 years, before the building of Rome. Josephus (c. Apion. i. 18; comp. Syncellus, p. 143) places it 143 years and eight months after the building of the temple of Solomon, that is, B. C. 861; while Eusebius (Chron. n. 971, ap. Syncell. p. 345; comp. Chron. n. 1003) places the event 133 years after the taking of Troy, that is, in B. C. 1025; and Philistus placed it even 37 or 50 years before the taking of Troy. (Euseb. Chron. n. 798 ; Syncell. p. 324; Appian, Pun. 1.) In the story constructed by Virgil in his Aeneid, he makes Dido, probably after the example of Naevius, a contemporary of Aeneas, with whom she falls in love on his arrival in Africa. As her love was not returned, and Aeneas hastened to seek the new home which the gods had promised him, Dido in despair destroyed herself on a funeral pile. The anachronism which Virgil thus commits is noticed by several ancient writers. (Serv. ad Aen. iv. 459, 682, v. 4; Macrob. Sat. v. 17, vi. 2; Auson. Epigr. 118.)
[L. S.]
This text is based on the following book(s):
William Smith. A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. London. John Murray. 1873.
Commentary on the Heroides of Ovid
Commentary on Ovid, Epistulae. poem 7, line 2.
DIDO AENEAE
After the destruction of Troy by the Greeks, Aeneas, the son of Anchises and Venus, having saved his domestic Gods and those of his country from the flames, and collected what number he could of the vanquished Trojans, put to sea in a fleet of twenty ships. Being overtaken by several storms, and tossed from sea to sea, he was at last thrown upon the coast of Libya, where at that time, according to the fiction of Virgil, Dido reigned (Aen. 1.340). This princess was the daughter of Belus, and wife to Sichaeus the priest of Hercules. Her brother Pygmalion, king of Tyre, being of an avaricious disposition, and imagining that Sichaeus possessed great treasures, murdered him for the sake of his wealth. As soon as this was known by Dido, she left Tyre, accompanied with such as were disgasted at the tyrant, and, landing in Africa, built Carthage. The town was approaching to completion, when Aeneas was driven upon that coast. He applied to the queen, and was hospitably received. Being after some time admonished by Mercury (Aen. 4.265), he prepared to sail for Italy, the country promised to him by Fate. Dido, who had been seized with a violent passion for him, upon hearing the fatal news, endeavors by this epistle to divert him from his intention, and threatens, in case of refusal, to put an end to her own life.
Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898)
Dido
(Didô), also called Elissa, the reputed founder of Carthage. She was a daughter of a Tyrian king, Belus, Agenor, or Mutgo, and sister of Pygmalion, who succeeded to the crown after the death of his father. Dido was married to her wealthy uncle, Acerbas or Sichaeus, who was murdered by Pygmalion. Upon this, Dido secretly sailed from Tyre with his treasures, accompanied by some noble Tyrians, and passed over to Africa. Here she purchased as much land as might be enclosed with the hide of a bull, but she ordered the hide to be cut up into the thinnest possible strips, and with them she surrounded a spot on which she built a citadel called Byrsa (from bursa, “bull's-hide”).
Around this fort the city of Carthage arose and soon became a powerful and flourishing place. The neighbouring king, Hiarbas, jealous of the prosperity of the new city, demanded the hand of Dido in marriage, threatening Carthage with war in case of refusal. Dido had vowed eternal fidelity to her late husband; but seeing that the Carthaginians expected her to comply with the demands of Hiarbas, she pretended to yield to their wishes, and under pretence of soothing the manes of Acerbas by expiatory sacrifices she erected a funeral pile, on which she stabbed herself in presence of her people. After her death she was worshipped by the Carthaginians as a divinity. Vergil has inserted in his Aeneid the legend of Dido, with various modifications. According to the common chronology, there was an interval of more than [p. 511] 300 years between the capture of Troy (B.C. 1184) and the foundation of Carthage (B.C. 853); but Vergil, nevertheless, makes Dido a contemporary of Aeneas, with whom she falls in love on his arrival in Africa. When Aeneas hastened to seek the new home which the gods had promised him, Dido, in despair, destroyed herself on a funeral pile. She was worshipped at Carthage and may be identified with Iuno Caelestis, the Roman representative of the Phœnician Astarté. See Verg. Aen.bks. i.-iv. and vi.; and the article Aeneas.
This text is based on the following book(s):
Harry Thurston Peck. Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. New York. Harper and Brothers. 1898.