In Greek mythology, Dido was the founder and queen of Carthage, a city on the northern coast of Africa. She was the daughter of Belus (or Mutto), a king of Tyre in Phoenicia (pronounced fuh-NEE-shuh), and the sister of Pygmalion (pronounced pig-MAY-lee-uhn). Dido is best known for her love affair with the Trojan hero Aeneas (pronounced i-NEE-uhs).
King Belus had wanted his son and daughter to share royal power equally after his death, but Pygmalion seized the throne and murdered Dido’s husband. Dido and her followers fled from Tyre, landing on the shores of North Africa. There a local ruler named Iarbas (pronounced ee-AR-bus) agreed to sell Dido as much land as the hide of a bull could cover. Dido cut a bull’s hide into thin strips and used it to outline a large area of land. On that site, Dido built Carthage and became its queen.
Carthage became a prosperous city. Iarbas pursued Dido, hoping to marry her, but Dido refused. After her husband’s death, she had sworn never to marry again. Iarbas continued his advances, and even threatened Carthage with war unless Dido agreed to be his wife. Seeing no other alternative, Dido killed herself by throwing herself into the flames of a funeral pyre, a large pile of burning wood used in some cultures to cremate a dead body. In another version of the story, she mounted the pyre and stabbed herself, surrounded by her people.
The Roman poet Virgil used part of the story of Dido in his epic poem the Aeneid. In Virgil’s account, the Trojan leader Aeneas was shipwrecked on the shore near Carthage at the time when Dido was building the new city. After welcoming Aeneas and his men, the queen fell deeply in love with him. In time, the two lived together as wife and husband, and Aeneas began to act as though he were king of Carthage. Then the god Jupiter (the Roman version of the Greek god Zeus) sent a messenger to tell Aeneas that he could not remain in Carthage. Rather, his destiny—or future path in life as determined by the gods—was to found a new city for the Trojans in Italy that would eventually become Rome.
Nationality/Culture
Greek/Roman
Pronunciation
DYE-doh
Alternate Names
Elissa
Appears In
Virgil's Aeneid, Ovid's Heroides
Lineage
Daughter of King Belus of Tyre
Aeneas tells Dido of his misfortunes at Troy. REUNION DES MUSEES NATIONAUX/ART RESOURCE, NY.
Dido was devastated when she heard that Aeneas planned to leave. She had believed that the two of them would eventually marry. Aeneas insisted that he had no choice but to obey the gods, and shortly afterward, he and his men set sail for Italy. When Dido saw the ships sail out to sea, she ordered a funeral pyre to be built. She climbed onto it, cursed Aeneas, and using a sword he had given her, stabbed herself to death.
World History
