Dido
3 of the 7 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Dido. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
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. See Aeneid ; Virgil
1000 Classical Characters (1900)
A daughter of Belus , king of Tyre, who married Sichaeus or Sicharbus, her uncle, who was priest of Hercules . Pygmalion killed Sichaeus to obtain his immense riches, and Dido, disconsolate at the loss of her husband, set sail with a number of Tyrians in quest of a place in which to form a settlement. A storm drove her fleet on the African coast, and she bought of the inhabitants as much land as could be inclosed by a bull's hide cut into thongs. On this land she built a citadel called Byrsa, which was the nucleus of a great city (Carthage). Her subjects wished her to marry again, but she refused, and erected a funeral pile, on which she ascended and stabbed herself to death. Diocletianus, Caius Valerius Jovius. A celebrated Roman emperor, born of an obscure family in Dalmatia. He was first a common soldier, and by merit gradually rose to the position of a general, and at length he was invested with imperial power. He has been celebrated for his military virtues, and though he was naturally unpolished by education, yet he was the friend and patron of learning and genius. His cruelty, however, against the followers of Christianity has been severely reprobated. After reigning twentyone years in great prosperity, he abdicated, A. D. 304, and died nine years afterward, aged sixty-eight. Diodorus, Siculus. Celebrated as the author of a history of Egypt, Persia, Syria, Media, Greece, Rome, and Carthage. It was divided into forty books, of which only fifteen are extant, with a few fragments.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
or ELISSA, the reputed founder of Carthage. She was the daughter of a king of Tyre, and after her father's death her brother Pygmalion murdered her husband Sicharbas, or as Vergil calls him sichæus, with the view of obtaining his wealth; but Dido, accompanied by many Tyrians of her party, fled with all the treasure over sea, and landing on the coast of Africa founded Carthage about 860 B. C. The story is told by Vergil with many inventions of his own in the "Eneid" (books i and ii).