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

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Dido

In Greek and Roman sources Dido or Elissa 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. more...

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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.

Early accounts

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.

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 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. 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).

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.

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.