Dido

In Greek and Roman sources Elissa or Dido appears as the founder and first Queen of Carthage in Tunisia. She is best known from the account given by the Roman poet Virgil in his Aeneid.

Early accounts

The person of Elissa can be traced back at least to lost writings of the historian Timaeus of Tauromenium in Sicily (c. 356–260 BC) as referred to and used by later sources. Timaeus dated the foundation of Carthage to 814 BC (or 813 BC) but he also placed the founding of Rome in the same year which suggests legend had been at work.

Related Topics:
Timaeus - Tauromenium - Sicily - 356 - 260 BC - 814 BC - 813 BC

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Other historians gave other dates, both for the foundation of Carthage and the foundation of Rome. Appian in the beginning of his Punic Wars claims that Carthage was founded by a certain Zorus and Carchedon (but Zorus looks like an alternate transliteration of the city name Tyre and Carchedon is just the Greek form of Carthage.) Timaeus made his wife Elissa the sister of King Pygmalion of Tyre and modern scholars still put Pygmalion (Pumayyaton) on the throne at that time so Timaeus' date usually appears in modern chronologies as the normal dubious and legendary date for the founding of Carthage. Yet archaelogy has yet to find any evidence of settlement on the site of Carthage before the last quarter of the 8th century BC. So the whole story might be legendary or the synchronism between Elissa and Pygmalion might be legendary or archaelogists may have as yet missed important evidence for earlier settlement.

Related Topics:
Appian - Pygmalion of Tyre

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That the city is named Qart-hadasht "New City" at least indicates it was a colony. (There is another Qart-hadasht in Cyprus). The name Elissa is probably a Greek rendering of Phoenician Elishat.

Related Topics:
Cyprus - Phoenician

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The only full account that has survives before Virgil's treatment is that of Virgil's contemporary Gnaeus Pompeius Trogus in his Philippic histories as rendered in a digest or eptome made by Justin two hundred years later.

Related Topics:
Gnaeus Pompeius Trogus - Justin

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According to Justin (18.4–6), a king of Tyre whom Justin does not name made his very beautiful daughter Elissa and son Pygmalion his joint heirs. But on his death the people took Pygmalion alone as their ruler though Pygmalion was yet still a boy. Elissa married Acerbas her uncle who as priest of Hercules was second in power to King Pygmalion. Rumor truthfully told how Acerbas had much wealth secretly buried and King Pygmalion had Acerbas murdered in hopes of gaining the wealth. Elissa, desiring to escape Tyre, pretended to wish to move into Pygmalion's palace. But then Elissa ordered the attendants whom Pgymalion sent to aid in the move to throw all Acerbas' bags of gold into the sea as an offering to his spirit, or so it seemed. In fact the bags contained only sand. Then Elissa persuaded the attendants to join her in flight to another land rather than face Pygmalion's anger when he discovered what had supposedly become of Acerbas' wealth. Some senators also joined her.

Related Topics:
Tyre - Hercules - Melqart

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The party arrived at Cyprus where the priest of Jupiter joined the expedition. There the exiles also seized about 80 young women who were prostituting themselves on the shore in order to provide wives for the men in the party.

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Eventually Elissa and her followers arrived in Libya where Elissa asked the local inhabitants for a small bit of land for a temporary refuge until she could continue her journeying, only as much land as could be encompassed by an oxhide. They agreed. Elissa cut the oxhide into fine strips so that she had enough to use it to surround an entire nearby hill, which was therefore aftewards named Byrsa "hide". That would become their new home. Many of the locals joined the settlement and both locals and envoys from the nearby Phoenician city of Utica urged the building of a city. In digging the foundations an ox's head was found, indicating a city that would be wealthy but subject to others. Accordingly another area of the hill was dug instead where a horse's head was found, indicating that the city would be powerful in war.

Related Topics:
Libya - Phoenicia - Utica

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But when the new city of Carthage had been established and become prosperous, Hiarbas, a native king of the Maxitani or Mauritani (mansucripts differ), demanded Elissa become his wife or he would make war on Carthage. Elissa's envoys, fearing Hiarbas, told Elissa only that Hiarbas' terms for peace were that someone from Carthage must dwell permanently with him to teach Phoenician ways and they added that of course no Carthaginian would agree to dwell with such savages. Elissa condemned any who would feel that way when they should indeed give their lives for the city if necessary. Elissa's envoys then explained that Hiarbas had specifically requested Elissa as wife. Elissa was trapped by her words. But Elissa preferred to stay faithful to her first husband and after creating a ceremonial funeral pyre and sacrificing many victims to his spirit in pretense that this was a final honoring of her first husband in preparation for marriage to Hiarbas, Elissa ascended the pyre, announced that she would go to her husband as they desired, and then slew herself with her sword. After this self-sacrifice Elissa was deified and was worshipped as long as Carthage endured. The foundation of Carthage occurred 72 years before the foundation of Rome.

Related Topics:
Funeral - Pyre

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Servius in his commentary on Virgil's Aeneid gives Sicharbas as the name of Elissa's husband in early tradition.

Related Topics:
Servius - Aeneid

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The oxhide story which explains the name of the hill must be of Greek origin since Byrsa means "oxhide" in Greek, not in Punic. The name of the hill in Punic was probably just a derivation from Semitic brt "fortified place". But that does not prevent other details in the story from being Carthaginian tradition though still not necessarily historical. Michael Grant in Roman Myths (1973) claims:

Related Topics:
Punic - Semitic

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:That is to say, Dido-Elissa was originally a goddess.

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:It has been conjectured that she was first converted from a goddess into a human queen in some Greek work of the later fifth century B.C.

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But others conjecture that Elissa was indeed historical.

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The name Dido used mostly by Latin writers seems to be a Phoenician form meaning "Wanderer" and was perhaps the name under which Elissa was most familiarly known in Carthage.

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We do not know who first combined the story of Elissa with the tradition that connected Aeneas either with Rome or with earlier settlements from which Rome traced its origin.

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A fragment of an epic poem by Gnaeus Naevius who died at Utica in 201 BC includes a passage which might or might not be part of a conversation between Aeneas and Dido. Servius in his commentary (4.682; 5.4) cites Varro (1st century BC) for a version in which Dido's sister Anna killed herself for love of Aeneas.

Related Topics:
Gnaeus Naevius - 201 BC - Servius - Varro

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