Dido
di-do, in classical legend, the queen of Carthage. She may have been a historical character, but the stories told of her are essentially inconsistent. According to the common legend she was sister of Pygmalion, king of Tyre. Her brother slew her husband for his wealth. But Dido, taking the treasure for which her husband had been murdered, and which her brother had failed to find, set sail for Africa, accompanied by many faithful followers. In Africa, Dido bargained for as much land as a bull's hide would cover, but cut the hide into the narrowest strips and claimed as much land as these strips and claimed as much land as these strips could be made to surround. Here she built the citadel of Byrsa, around which the city of Carthage grew up. About to be forced into a marriage with Hiarbas, the Numidian king, Dido caused a funeral pile to be erected upon which she stabbed herself. From that time, she was worshiped as patroness of the city of Carthage.
Virgil, in the fourth book of the Aeneid, tells a different story of Dido's death. He represent Aeneas as landing on the African coast. Dido receives him in most friendly fashion. He is her guest for some months, and seems content to remain, since both a kingdom and a bride are offered him. He is destined, however, for a different fate. Jupiter sends Mercury to bid him resume his journey. Aeneas obeys. Dido is broken-hearted and seeks death as the only solace for her unrequited love. Virgil has handled this romantic story in so masterly a fashion that it has become one of the most famous stories in all literature. For the character of Dido, Virgil was indebted doubtless to Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt. The incidents connected with her life and death were fresh in all minds at the time this part of the Aeneid was written, and had doubtless made a deep impression. In the sixth book of the Aeneid, Aeneas visits the infernal regions, and there beholds the "unhappy Dido." He weeps at her sad fate, calls the gods to witness that he did not voluntarily desert her, and begs a farewell word. But Dido passes on, insensible alike to his tears and his pleading.
Many of the ancient critics believed Virgil to have committed an anachronism in representing Aeneas and Dido as contemporary. Dido's founding of Carthage was placed from fifty to one hundred years earlier than the founding of Rome. That Dido is called Elissa by Virgil and others, is due doubtless to a confusion of two distinct personages. The name Dido was in reality the surname of the Phoenician Astarte, goddess of the moon, who was also goddess of the citadel of Carthage. Elissa or Elisa was the Tyrian foundress of Troy. She was confounded with the goddess Dido and came to be called Dido. The story of Dido has been told by Chaucer in his Legend of Good Women and by Tasso in Jerusalem Delivered. Both of these authors have followed Virgil closely. One of Marlowe's tragedies is Dido, Queen of Carthage. Dido Building Carthage is the subject of a famous painting by Turner, now in the National gallery at London.