called also ELISA, a daughter of Belus king of Tyre, who married Sichaeus or Sicharbas her uncle, who was priest of Hercules. Pygmalion, who succeeded to the throne of Tyre after Belus, murdered Sichaeus to get possession of the immense riches which he had; and Dido, disconsolate for the loss of her husband, whom she tenderly loved, and by whom she was equally esteemed, set sail in quest of a settlement with a number of Tyrians, to whom the cruelty of the tyrant became odious. According to some accounts, she threw into the sea the riches of her husband which Pygmalion so greedily desired, and by that artifice compelled the ships to fly with her that had come by order of the tyrant to obtain the riches of Sichaeus. During her voyage, Dido visited the coast of Cyprus; where she carried away 50 women who prostituted themselves on the sea-shore, and gave them as wives to her Tyrian followers. A storm drove her fleet on the African coast, and the bought of the inhabitants as much land as could be covered by a bull's hide cut into thongs. Upon this piece of land she built a citadel called Byrsa; and the increase of population, and the rising commerce among her subjects, soon obliged her to enlarge her city and the boundaries of her dominions. Her beauty as well as the fame of her enterprise, gained her many admirers; and her subjects wished to compel her to marry Iarbas king of Mauritania, who threatened them with a dreadful war. Dido begged three months to give her decisive answer: and during that time she erected a funeral pile, as if wishing by a solemn sacrifice to appease the manes of Sichaeus, to whom she had promised eternal fidelity. When all was prepared, she flambed herself on the pile in presence of her people; and by this uncommon action obtained the name of Dido, "valiant woman," instead of Elisa. According to Virgil and Ovid, the death of Dido was caused by the sudden departure of Æneas; of whom she was deeply enamoured, and whom she could not obtain as a husband. This poetical fiction represents Æneas as living in the age of Dido, and introduces an anachronism of near 300 years. Dido left Phoenicia 247 years after the Trojan war or the age of Æneas, that is, about 951 years before Christ. This chronological error proceeds not from the ignorance of the poets, but it is supported by the authority of Horace.

Aut famam sequere, aut sibi convenientia finge.

While Virgil describes, in a beautiful episode, the desperate love of Dido, and the submission of Æneas to the will of the gods, he at the same time gives an explanation of the hatred which existed between the republics of Rome and Carthage; and informs his reader, that their mutual enmity originated in their very first foundation, and was apparently kindled by a more remote cause than the jealousy and rivalry of two flourishing empires. Dido after her death was honoured as a deity by her subjects.