Aeneas recounting the Trojan War to Dido. Pierre-Narcisse Guérin.

In Greek and Roman sources Dido appears as the founder and first Queen of Carthage (in modern-day Tunisia). She is best known from the account given by the Roman poet Virgil in his Aeneid. Image File history File links Size of this preview: 800 × 597 pixelsFull resolution (1256 × 937 pixel, file size: 137 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 800 × 597 pixelsFull resolution (1256 × 937 pixel, file size: 137 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... The fall of Troy, by Johann Georg Trautmann (1713–1769). ... Aeneas tells Dido about the fall of Troy, 1815. ... Roman Carthage with former military harbor Carthage (Greek: , Latin: , from the Phoenician meaning new town; Arabic: ) refers both to an ancient city in Tunisia and to the civilization that developed within the citys sphere of influence. ... Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew from a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula circa the 9th century BC to a massive empire straddling the Mediterranean Sea. ... Publius Vergilius Maro (October 15, 70 BC – September 21, 19 BC), later called Virgilius, and known in English as Virgil or Vergil, was a classical Roman poet, the author of the Eclogues, the Georgics and the substantially completed Aeneid, the last being an epic poem of twelve books that became... Aeneas flees burning Troy, Federico Barocci, 1598 Galleria Borghese, Rome The Aeneid (IPA English pronunciation: ; in Latin Aeneis, pronounced — the title is Greek in form: genitive case Aeneidos): is a Latin epic written by Virgil in the 1st century BCE (between 29 and 19 BCE) that tells the legendary story...

The name Elissa is probably a Greek rendering of the Phoenician Elishat. 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. Phoenician sarcophagus found in Cadiz, Spain; now in Archaeological Museum of Cádiz. ... Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in Latium, the region immediately surrounding Rome. ...

Early accounts

Aeneid, Book I, Death of Dido. From the Vergilius Vaticanus (Vatican Library, Cod. Vat. lat. 3225).

The person of Elissa can be traced back to references by Roman historians to lost writings of Timaeus of Tauromenium in Sicily (c. 356–260 BC). Timaeus apparently 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. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (2024x2012, 348 KB) Description: Title: de: Die Äneide des Virgil, I. Buch, Szene: Der Tod Didos Technique: de: Pergament Dimensions: de: 11,8 × 15,7 cm Country of origin: de: Italien Current location (city): de: Rom Current location (gallery): de: Vatikan... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (2024x2012, 348 KB) Description: Title: de: Die Äneide des Virgil, I. Buch, Szene: Der Tod Didos Technique: de: Pergament Dimensions: de: 11,8 × 15,7 cm Country of origin: de: Italien Current location (city): de: Rom Current location (gallery): de: Vatikan... Folio 22r from the Vatican Virgil contains an illustration from the Aeneid of the flight from Troy. ... Timaeus (c. ... Isola Bella from the North Isola Bella Bay from the south Greek theatre in Taormina Taormina is a small town in the island of Sicily in Italy. ... Sicily (Sicilia in Italian and Sicilian) is an autonomous region of Italy and the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, with an area of 25,708 km² (9,926 sq. ... Centuries: 5th century BC - 4th century BC - 3rd century BC Decades: 400s BC 390s BC 380s BC 370s BC 360s BC - 350s BC - 340s BC 330s BC 320s BC 310s BC 300s BC 361 BC 360 BC 359 BC 358 BC 357 BC 356 BC 355 BC 354 BC 353... Centuries: 4th century BC - 3rd century BC - 2nd century BC Decades: 310s BC 300s BC 290s BC 280s BC 270s BC - 260s BC - 250s BC 240s BC 230s BC 220s BC 210s BC Years: 265 BC 264 BC 263 BC 262 BC 261 BC - 260 BC - 259 BC 258 BC... Centuries: 10th century BC - 9th century BC - 8th century BC Decades: 860s BC 850s BC 840s BC 830s BC 820s BC - 810s BC - 800s BC 790s BC 780s BC 770s BC 760s BC Events and Trends 817 BC - Pedubastis I declares himself king of Egypt, founding the Twenty-third Dynasty. ... Centuries: 10th century BC - 9th century BC - 8th century BC Decades: 860s BC 850s BC 840s BC 830s BC 820s BC - 810s BC - 800s BC 790s BC 780s BC 770s BC 760s BC Events and Trends 817 BC - Pedubastis I declares himself king of Egypt, founding the Twenty-third Dynasty. ... The founding of Rome is reported by many legends, which in recent times are beginning to be supplemented by more scientific reconstructions. ...

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 Carchedon's wife Elissa the sister of King Pygmalion of Tyre, and modern scholars still put Pygmalion (Pumayyaton) on the throne of gold at that time, so Timaeus' date usually appears in modern chronologies as the normal dubious and legendary date for the founding of Carthage. Yet archaeology 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 archaeologists may have as yet missed important evidence for earlier settlement. That the city is named Qart-hadasht "New City" at least indicates it was a colony. (There is another Qart-hadasht in Cyprus as well as in Spain). Appian (c. ... Pygmalion (also known as Pumayyaton) was king of Tyre from 820 to 774 BC and a son of King Mattan I (829-821 BC). ...

The only surviving full account before Virgil's treatment is that of Virgil's contemporary Gnaeus Pompeius Trogus in his Philippic histories as rendered in a digest or epitome made by Junianus Justinus in the 3rd century. Gnaeus Pompeius Trogus, 1st century BC Roman historian, of the Celtic tribe of the Vocontii in Gallia Narbonensis, flourished during the age of Augustus, nearly contemporary with Livy. ... Justin or Marcus Junianus Justinus or Justinus Frontinus, 3rd century Roman historian. ...

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— that is, Melqart— 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 Pygmalion 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. The Triumphal Arch Tyre (Arabic , Phoenician , Hebrew Tzor, Tiberian Hebrew , Akkadian , Greek Týros) is a city in the South Governorate of Lebanon. ... Hercules, a Roman bronze (Louvre Museum) For other uses, see Heracles (disambiguation). ... Melqart (less accurately Melkart, Melkarth or Melgart (Greek disposed of the letter Q (Qoppa), replacing it with additional use of K (Kappa) and G (Gamma)), Akkadian Milqartu, was the tutelary god of the Phoenician city of Tyre, as Eshmun protected Sidon. ...

The party arrived at Cyprus where the priest of Jupiter joined the expedition. There the exiles also seized about eighty young women who were prostituting themselves on the shore in order to provide wives for the men in the party. Jupiter et Thétis - by Jean Ingres, 1811. ...

Eventually Elissa and her followers arrived on the coast of North Africa 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 afterwards named Byrsa "hide". (This event is commemorated in modern mathematics: The "isoperimetric problem" of enclosing the maximum area within a fixed boundary is often called the "Dido Problem" in modern Calculus of variations.) 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. North Africa is the Mediterranean, northernmost region of the African continent, separated by the Sahara from Sub-Saharan Africa. ... Isoperimetry literally means having an equal perimeter. In mathematics, isoperimetry is the general study of geometric figures having equal boundaries. ... Calculus of variations is a field of mathematics that deals with functions of functions, as opposed to ordinary calculus which deals with functions of numbers. ... Phoenician sarcophagus found in Cadiz, Spain; now in Archaeological Museum of Cádiz. ... This article is about the ancient city of Utica in Tunisia. ...

But when the new city of Carthage had been established and become prosperous, Iarbas, a native king of the Maxitani or Mauritani (manuscripts differ), demanded Elissa for his wife or he would make war on Carthage. Elissa's envoys, fearing Iarbas, told Elissa only that Iarbas' 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 Iarbas 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 Iarbas, 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. In this account, the foundation of Carthage occurred 72 years before the foundation of Rome. This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... An Ubud cremation ceremony in 2005. ...

Servius in his commentary on Virgil's Aeneid gives Sicharbas as the name of Elissa's husband in early tradition. Maurus (or Marius) Servius Honoratius, Roman grammarian and commentator on Virgil, flourished at the end of the 4th century AD. He is one of the interlocutors in the Saturnalia of Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius, and allusions in that work and a letter from Quintus Aurelius Symmachus to Servius show that he... Aeneas flees burning Troy, Federico Barocci, 1598 Galleria Borghese, Rome The Aeneid (IPA English pronunciation: ; in Latin Aeneis, pronounced — the title is Greek in form: genitive case Aeneidos): is a Latin epic written by Virgil in the 1st century BCE (between 29 and 19 BCE) that tells the legendary story...

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: Punic was a Roman contraction of Phoenician, and was used by the Romans after the Punic wars as an adjective meaning treacherous. In archaeological and linguistic usage, it refers to the later culture and dialect of Carthage and its empire, as distinct from their Phoenician originals. ... The Semitic languages are the northeastern subfamily of the Afro-Asiatic languages, and the only family of this group spoken in Asia. ... There are several people with the name Michael Grant: Michael Grant (author), the historian who wrote about the Roman empire Michael Grant (boxer), the boxer Michael Grant, 12th Baron de Longueuil This human name article is a disambiguation page — a list of pages that might otherwise share the same title...

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

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 BC.

But others conjecture that Elissa was indeed historical.

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. Nickname: Motto: SPQR: Senatus Populusque Romanus Location of the city of Rome (yellow) within the Province of Rome (red) and region of Lazio (grey) Coordinates: Region Lazio Province Province of Rome Founded 21 April 753 BC Government  - Mayor Walter Veltroni Area  - City 1,285 km²  (580 sq mi)  - Urban 5...

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. Gnaeus Naevius (c. ... Centuries: 4th century BC - 3rd century BC - 2nd century BC Decades: 250s BC 240s BC 230s BC 220s BC 210s BC - 200s BC - 190s BC 180s BC 170s BC 160s BC 150s BC Years: 206 BC 205 BC 204 BC 203 BC 202 BC - 201 BC - 200 BC 199 BC... Maurus (or Marius) Servius Honoratius, Roman grammarian and commentator on Virgil, flourished at the end of the 4th century AD. He is one of the interlocutors in the Saturnalia of Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius, and allusions in that work and a letter from Quintus Aurelius Symmachus to Servius show that he... Marcus Terentius Varro ([[116 BC]–27 BC), also known as Varro Reatinus to distinguish him from his contemporary Varro Atacinus, was a Roman scholar and writer, who the Romans came to call the most learned of all the Romans. ...

Virgil's Aeneid

Virgil's back-references in his Aeneid generally agree with what Justin's epitome of Trogus recorded. Virgil names Dido's father as Belus, this Belus sometimes being called Belus II by later commentators to distinguish him from Belus son of Poseidon and Libya in earlier Greek mythology. If the story of Elissa/Dido has a factual basis and is synchronized properly with history then this Belus stands for Mattan I who was father of the historical Pygmalion. For other individuals with this name, see Belus. ... Belus (Greek Belos) the Egyptian is in Greek Mythology a son of Poseidon by Libya. ... Neptune reigns in the city of Bristol. ... The bust of Zeus found at Otricoli (Sala Rotonda, Museo Pio-Clementino, Vatican) Greek mythology is the body of stories belonging to the Ancient Greeks concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. ... Mattan I (or Matan I or Mittin) ruled Tyre from 829 to 821 BC, succeeding Baal-Eser II (Balbazer II) of Tyre/Sidon. ...

Virgil (1.746f) adds that the marriage between Dido/Elissa and Sychaeus, as Virgil calls Dido's husband, occurred while her father was still alive, that Pygmalion slew Sychaeus secretly and that Sychaeus appeared in a dream to Dido in which he told the truth about his death, urged her to flee the country, and revealed to her where his gold was buried. None of these details contradict Justin's epitome. Indeed they clarify it and are likely enough to have been part of the tale Justin was abridging. In Vergils epic Aeneid, Sychaeus was the husband of the Phoenician queen Dido. ...

But Virgil very much changes the import and many details of the story when he brings Aeneas and his followers to Carthage.

(1.657f) Dido and Aeneas fall in love by the management of Juno and Venus, acting in concert though for different reasons. (4.198f) When the rumour of the love affair comes to King Iarbas the Gaetulian, "a son of Jupiter Ammon by a raped Garamantian nymph", Iarbas prays to his father, blaming Dido who has scorned marriage with him yet now takes Aeneas into the country as her lord. (4.222f) Jupiter dispatches Mercury to send Aeneas on his way and the pious Aeneas sadly obeys. Mercury tells Aeneas of all the promising Italian lands and orders Aeneas to get his fleet ready. IVNO REGINA (Queen Juno) on a coin celebrating Julia Soaemias. ... Marble Venus of the Capitoline Venus type, Roman (British Museum) Venus was a major Roman goddess principally associated with love and beauty, the rough equivalent of the Greek goddess Aphrodite. ... Ammon or Ammonites (עַמּוֹן People, Standard Hebrew ʻAmmon, Tiberian Hebrew ʻAmmôn), also referred to in the Bible as the children of Ammon, were a people living east of the Jordan river who along with the Moabites traced their origin to Lot, the nephew of the patriarch Abraham, and who were... The Garamantes were a Saharan Berber-speaking people who used an elaborate underground irrigation system, and founded a kingdom in the Fezzan area of modern-day Libya, in the Sahara desert. ... A sculpture of the Roman god Mercury by 17th-century Flemish artist Artus Quellinus. ...

(4.450f) Dido can no longer bear to live. (4.474) Dido has her sister Anna build her a pyre under the pretence of burning all that reminded her of Aeneas, including weapons and clothes that Aeneas had left behind and (what she calls) their bridal bed (though, according to Aeneas, they were never officially married.) (4.584f) When Dido sees Aeneas' fleet leaving she curses him and his Trojans and proclaims endless hate between Carthage and the descendants of Troy, foreshadowing the Punic Wars. (4.642) Dido ascends the pyre, lies again on the couch which she had shared with Aeneas, and then falls on a sword that Aeneas had given her. (4.666) Those watching let out a cry; Anna rushes in and embraces her dying sister; Juno sends Iris from heaven to release Dido's spirit from her body. (5.1) From their ships, Aeneas and his crew see the glow of Dido's burning funeral pyre and can only guess what has happened. Aeneas flees burning Troy, Federico Barocci, 1598. ... Troy or Ilion, see Troy (disambiguation) and Ilion (disambiguation). ... The Punic Wars were a series of three wars fought between Rome and Carthage. ... Iris, by Luca Giordano In Greek mythology, Iris is the personification of the rainbow and messenger of the gods. ...

(6.450f) During his journey in the underworld Aeneas meets Dido and tries to excuse himself, but Dido does not deign to look at him. Instead she turns away from Aeneas to a grove where her former husband Sychaeus waits. T. S. Eliot once called this "the most civilized moment in Western literature."^{[citation needed]} Thomas Stearns Eliot, OM (September 26, 1888 – January 4, 1965), was a poet, dramatist and literary critic. ...

Virgil has included most of the motifs from the original: Iarbas who desires Dido against her will, a deceitful explanation for the building of the pyre, and Elissa/Dido's final suicide. In both versions Elissa/Dido is loyal to her original husband in the end. But whereas the earlier Elissa remained always loyal to her husband's memory, Virgil's Dido dies as a tortured and repentant woman who has fallen away from that loyalty.

Later Roman tradition

Letter 7 of Ovid's Heroides is a feigned letter from Dido to Aeneas written just before she ascends the pyre. The situation is as in Virgil's Aeneid except that Ovid's Dido is pregnant by Aeneas. In Ovid's Fasti (3.545f) Ovid introduced a kind of sequel involving Aeneas and Dido's sister Anna. See Anna Perenna. Engraved frontispiece of George Sandyss 1632 London edition of Publius Ovidius Naso (Sulmona, March 20, 43 BC – Tomis, now Constanţa AD 17), a Roman poet known to the English-speaking world as Ovid, wrote on topics of love, abandoned women and mythological transformations. ... Anna Perenna was an old Roman deity of the circle or ring of the year, as the name (per annum) clearly indicates. ...

The Barcids, the family to which Hannibal belonged, claimed descent from a younger brother of Dido according to Silius Italicus in his Punica (1.71–7). Hannibal, the son of Hamilcar Barca, (247 BC – ca. ... Silius Italicus, in full Titus Catius Silius Italicus (AD 25 or 26 - 101), was a Latin epic poet. ...

The Augustan History ("Tyrrani Triginta" 27, 30) claims that Zenobia queen of Palmyra in the late 3rd century AD was descended from Cleopatra, Dido and Semiramis. The Augustan History (Lat. ... This article is about the Queen of the Palmyrene Empire. ... A general view of the site Palmyra was in the ancient times an important city of central Syria, located in an oasis 215 km northeast of Damascus and 120 km southwest of the Euphrates. ... Cleopatra was a co-ruler of Egypt with her father (Ptolemy XII Auletes), her brothers/husbands Ptolemy XIII and Ptolemy XIV, consummated a liaison with Gaius Julius Caesar that solidified her grip on the throne, and, after Caesars assassination, aligned with Mark Antony, with whom she produced twins. ... Semiramis is depicted as an armed Amazon in this eighteenth century Italian illustration. ...

Continuing tradition

In the Divine Comedy Dante sees the shade of Dido in the second circle of Hell, where she is condemned (on account of her consuming lust) to be blasted for eternity in a fierce whirlwind. The Divine Comedy (Italian: , later christened Divina by Giovanni Boccaccio), written by Dante Alighieri between 1308 and his death in 1321, is widely considered the central epic poem of Italian literature, and is seen as one of the greatest works of world literature ever. ...

The story of Dido and Aeneas remained popular throughout the post-Renaissance era, and was the basis for the opera Dido and Aeneas by Henry Purcell and the drama Dido, Queen of Carthage by Christopher Marlowe. Even today, Dido appears in Sid Meier's strategy game Civilizations II, as the female leader of the Carthaginian tribe. The Composer, Henry Purcell Dido and Aeneas is an opera by the English Baroque composer Henry Purcell, from a libretto by Nahum Tate. ... Henry Purcell Henry Purcell (IPA: [1]; September 10 (?) [2], 1659–November 21, 1695), a Baroque composer, is generally considered to be one of Englands greatest composers. ... Dido, Queen of Carthage is a short play written by the English playwright Christopher Marlowe and possibly by Thomas Nashe, first shown about 1583. ... Christopher (Kit) Marlowe (baptised 26 February 1564 – 30 May 1593?) was an English dramatist, poet, and translator of the Elizabethan era. ... Sidney K. Meier (born 1954 in Detroit, Michigan) is a renowned American programmer and designer of some of the most commercially and critically successful computer strategy games of all time. ...

Remembrance of the story of the bull's hide and the foundation of Carthage is preserved in mathematics in connection with the Isoperimetric problem which is sometimes called Dido's Problem (and similarly the Isoperimetric theorem is sometimes called Dido's Theorem). It is sometimes stated in such discussion that Dido caused her thong to be placed as a half circle touching the sea coast at each end (which would add greatly to the perimeter) but the sources mention the thong only and say nothing about the sea. Isoperimetry literally means having an equal perimeter. In mathematics, isoperimetry is the general study of geometric figures having equal boundaries. ...

Carthage was the Roman Republic's greatest rival and enemy, and Virgil's Dido in part symbolises this. Even though no Rome existed in her day, Virgil's Dido curses the future progeny of the Trojans. In Italy under the Fascist regime, her figure was demonized, perhaps not only as an anti-Roman figure but because she represented together at least three other unpleasant qualities: feminine virtue, Semitic ethnic origin, and African civilization. As an innocuous example: when Mussolini's regime named the streets of new quarters in Rome with the characters of Virgil's Aeneid, only the name Dido did not appear. Motto Senatus Populusque Romanus Roman provinces on the eve of the assassination of Julius Caesar, c. ... In linguistics and ethnology, Semitic (from the Biblical Shem, Hebrew: שם, translated as name, Arabic: سام) was first used to refer to a language family of largely Middle Eastern origin, now called the Semitic languages. ... A world map showing the continent of Africa Africa is the worlds second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. ... Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (July 29, 1883 – April 28, 1945) was the prime minister and dictator of Italy from 1922 until 1943, when he was overthrown. ...

In tragic compensation (in a sadly curious way), the Royal Navy employed Dido-class cruisers against Italian objectives during the Second World War, seemingly a devastating justification of Fascist fears. The Royal Navy of the United Kingdom is the oldest of the British armed services (and is therefore the Senior Service). ... The Dido class was a class of sixteen (including the Bellona sub-class) light cruisers built for the Royal Navy. ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000...

An alternative viewpoint

An alternative viewpoint, based on Gerhard Herm’s interpretation (Die Phönizier 1974), supported by selected classic sources (Virgil, Ovid, Silius Italicus), but rejecting much of Timaeus’ account, leads to a slightly different historiographical outline (main changes in italic, followed by references):

Dido, or Elisha/Elissa, was a Phoenician Queen, founder of Carthage. First-born from King of Tyre, her succession was disputed by her younger brother, Pumayyaton/Pygmalion, who murdered her husband and imposed his rule. At this point she left Tyre with a large following, starting a long voyage; main stages were Cyprus and, possibly, Malta [Ovid, Fasti 3.567f].

Landing on Libyan coasts, about 814 BC (Timaeus' date), she chose a place to found a new capital city for her Phoenician followers: Carthage. She peacefully obtained the land by an ingenious agreement with the local lord, today known as the "Theorem of Dido". During her widowhood, she was consistently sought in marriage by local kings; but if we accept Silius Italicus, she married again, probably with a Tyrian follower, from the Barca family [Punica 1.71f, 2.239].

Dido promoted a significant religious reform and after a long and prosperous reign, she favored the formation of a Republic [Virgil, Aeneid 1.426]; After her death, she was deified by her people with the name of Tanit and assimilated to the Great Goddess Astarte (Roman Juno) [Virgil, Aeneid 1.446f, Silius Italicus, Punica 1.81f].

The cult of Tanit survived Carthage's destruction by the Romans; it was introduced to Rome itself by Emperor Septimius Severus, himself born in North Africa. It was extinguished completely with the Theodosian decrees of the late 4th century. Basic Tanit symbol Tanit was a Carthaginian lunar goddess. ... Lucius Septimius Severus (b. ... An engraving depicting what Theodosius may have looked like, ca. ...

Selected bibliography

• H. Akbar Khan, "Doctissima Dido": Etymology, Hospitality and the Construction of a Civilized Identity, 2002.
• E.B. Atwood, Two Alterations of Virgil in Chaucer’s Dido, 1938.
• S. Conte, Dido sine veste, 2005.
• R. S. Conway, The Place of Dido in History, 1920.
• F. Della Corte, La Iuno-Astarte virgiliana, 1983.
• G. De Sanctis, Storia dei Romani, 1916.
• M. Fantar, Carthage, la prestigieuse cité d'Elissa, 1970.
• L. Foucher, Les Phéniciens à Carthage ou la geste d'Elissa, 1978.
• Michael Grant, Roman Myths, 1973.
• M. Gras/P. Rouillard/J. Teixidor, L'univers phénicien, 1995.
• H.D. Gray, Did Shakespeare write a tragedy of Dido?, 1920.
• G. Herm, Die Phönizier, 1974.
• T. Kailuweit, Dido - Didon - Didone. Eine kommentierte Bibliographie zum Dido-Mythos in Literatur und Musik, 2005.
• R.C. Ketterer, The perils of Dido: sorcery and melodrama in Vergil’s Aeneid IV and Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, 1992.
• R.H. Klausen, Aeneas und die Penaten, 1839.
• G. Kowalski, De Didone graeca et latina, 1929.
• F.N. Lees, Dido Queen of Carthage and The Tempest, 1964.
• J.-Y. Maleuvre, Contre-Enquête sur la mort de Didon, 2003.
• J.-Y. Maleuvre, La mort de Virgile d’après Horace et Ovide, 1993;
• L. Mangiacapre, Didone non è morta, 1990.
• P.E. McLane, The Death of a Queen: Spencer's Dido as Elizabeth, 1954.
• O. Meltzer, Geschichte der Karthager, 1879.
• A. Michel, Virgile et la politique impériale: un courtisan ou un philosophe?, 1971.
• S. Moscati, Chi furono i Fenici. Identità storica e culturale di un popolo protagonista dell'antico mondo mediterraneo, 1992.
• R. Neuse, Book VI as Conclusion to The Faerie Queene, 1968.
• A. Parry, The Two Voices of Virgil's Aeneid, 1963.
• G.K. Paster, Montaigne, Dido and The Tempest: “How Came That Widow In?, 1984.
• B. Schmitz, Ovide, In Ibin: un oiseau impérial, 2004;
• E. Stampini, Alcune osservazioni sulla leggenda di Enea e Didone nella letteratura romana, 1893.

Robert Seymour Conway (1864-1933) was a British classical scholar and comparative philologist. ...

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Dido

• Selected English texts (Alternate links found in Wikipedia entries for the respective authors.)
  • Forum Romanum: Justin 18.3f (Contains Justin (18.3–6) relating the early story of Elissa in full.)
  • A. S. Kline's translation of Virgil's works including the Aeneid (See also Virgil and Aeneid.)
  • Ovid's imagined letter from Dido to Aeneas, trans. Miceal F. Vaughan (See also Ovid.)
  • Appian, The Punic Wars, chapter 1 (See also Appian.)
  • Dido, Queen of Carthage, original text, modernization, and discussion of Chaucer's Legend of Dido
  • The Tragedy of Dido, Queen of Carthage, by Christopher Marlowe (and Thomas Nashe?). (See also Christopher Marlowe.)
• Commentary
  • Greek Mythology Link: Dido
  • Phoenicia: Elissar, Dido, the Queen of Carthage and her city
  • Queen Dido: Didone Liberata (Mostly about a new four-act play by Salvatore Conte; it contains also a confutation of the well-known suicide into a subjective vision of Aeneas and his "comites" - 4.664, followed by Dido's catabasis)