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 in order to obtain possession of the immense riches which he had acquired; 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 had become odious. According to some accounts, she threw into the sea the riches of her husband which Pygmalion so greedily desired; and by this artifice compelled the ships which had come by order of the tyrant to obtain the riches of Sichaeus to join in her flight. During her voyage Dido visited the coast of Cyprus, where she carried away fifty women who had prostituted themselves on the seashore, and gave them as wives to her Tyrian followers. A storm drove her fleet on the African coast, and she bought of the inhabitants as much land as could be covered by a bull's hide cut into thongs. Upon this piece of ground 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 extend 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 Jarbas, king of Mauritania, who threatened them with a dreadfull 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 stabbed herself on the pile in presence of her people; and by this uncommon action obtained the name of Dido, or 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 had become 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 nearly 300 years. Dido left Phoenicia 247 years after the Trojan war, or the age of Æneas; that is, about 953 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.

Whilst Virgil, in a beautiful episode, describes 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 from their very foundation, and was apparently kindled by a more remote cause than the jealousy and rivalryship of two flourishing empires. Dido after her death was honoured as a deity by her subjects.

DIDYMYUS of Alexandria, an ecclesiastical writer of the fourth century, who, though he is said to have lost his eyes at five years of age, when he had scarcely learned to read, yet applied so earnestly to study, that he attained all the philosophic arts in a high degree, and was thought worthy to fill the chair in the famous divinity school at Alexandria. He was the author of a great number of works; but all which we have now remaining are, a Latin translation of his book upon the Holy Spirit, in the works of St Jerome, who was the translator; short strictures on the Canonical Epistles; and a book against the Manicheans.