Dido, Queen of Carthage

Carthaginian queen

• Born: Middle of the ninth century b.c.e.
• Birthplace: Tyre, Phoenicia (now Tyre, Lebanon)
• Died: End of the ninth-beginning of the eighth century b.c.e.
• Place of death: Carthage (now in Tunisia)

Dido founded the city of Carthage in northern Africa, a city that was to play a crucial role in the expansion of Phoenician power throughout the Mediterranean region.

Early Life

Information concerning the life of Dido (DI-doh) comes from a variety of sources, including Greek and Roman histories, ancient poetry, and the royal chronicles of Dido’s home city, Tyre. The Tyrian royal chronicles, translated into Greek in the Hellenistic period, record that in 820 b.c.e. King Matton was succeeded by his son, Pumayatton, who was then eleven years old. The same chronicles record that King Pumayatton (“Pygmalion” in Greek) had a sister called Elisha or Aliyisha. The Greeks and Romans called Elisha “Dido,” and it is by that name that she is best known today.

Tyre was the bustling metropolis of the Phoenician kingdom, which occupied the lands of modern Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. The Phoenicians were renowned (and sometimes reviled) throughout the Mediterranean world as intrepid seafarers, skilled engineers, clever merchants, talented artisans, and learned scribes—who passed on their alphabet to ancient neighbors and, eventually, to modern Western civilization. Phoenician society in the ninth century b.c.e. was rich and prosperous. Although a king presided, evidence suggests that a council of elders, and later a senate, allowed adult male citizens to participate in governing Tyre. The rest of the population consisted of free men and women and slaves.

As a princess in the royal court of Phoenicia, Dido would have enjoyed a privileged upbringing. She was born into a wealthy family whose rulers had built many magnificent buildings, including temples and palaces. The royal palace at Tyre was a prominent landmark with its kingly residence, archives, and treasuries. If Dido was formally educated, it is likely that she was schooled privately. Some women of Phoenicia’s aristocracy were trained in the official duties of the priesthood of Astarte, goddess of fertility and fecundity. Traditionally, the priestess of the cult of Astarte was drawn from the royal family—often, like Dido, a female descendant of the queen or queen mother.

At some point after the death of King Matton, the Roman writer Justin reports, Dido was married to her mother’s brother, Zakar-baal (Sychaeus in some versions). Dido would have been young, by modern standards, at the time of her marriage, and it is likely that her mother or brother arranged the match for her. Zakar-baal was the chief priest of Melqart (a god similar in character and properties to the Greek Herakles), and therefore he was second in line to the throne. Justin writes that King Pygmalion became very greedy and sought to seize the wealth and possessions of Zakar-baal, who was murdered at the order of the king. The death of her husband prompted Dido to flee Tyre, whence she began the Mediterranean voyage that led to the foundation of a new city and made her famous in the ancient world not as Elisha but as Dido, a name that has not been satisfactorily explained by modern scholars but which may have roots in a Greek word for “wanderer” or a Latin word for “virile woman.”

Life’s Work

Much of what happened after Dido fled Tyre is shrouded in myth. Greek and Latin authors are generally unanimous in reporting that Dido left Tyre accompanied by members of the city’s aristocracy, who had joined with Dido in their opposition to Pygmalion. Their first stop was Cyprus, where they sought help from the local priest of Juno. In exchange for hospitality and provisions, Dido promised to continue the cult of Juno in her new town. At Cyprus the Tyrian refugees took on eighty virgins who were destined for sacred prostitution in the local temple to Venus. The young women were to serve the practical purpose of peopling the new settlement and were of symbolic significance because their rescue from sacred prostitution signaled Dido’s piety (or cunning, to those later critics who read malfeasance in her expansionist endeavor).

Sailing from Cyprus, Dido and her retinue crossed the Mediterranean Sea and, after wandering for some time, landed in northern Africa, on a peninsula within the Gulf of Tunis that is today part of Tunisia. The mythical tradition has it that Dido bought land from the local people to give her colonists a place to live. The agreement was that she would pay the price of a plot of land large enough to be covered by an ox hide. The enterprising queen cut the hide into very thin strips and encircled the entire base of the hill on which her people had settled. Seeing that they had been outsmarted, the natives allowed Dido more land for her city. Dido called her new town Qart Hadasht, a name that comes from two Phoenician words: qart (city) and hadasht (new). The name was rendered into Latin as Karthago, from which came “Carthage.” The hill that Dido bought with the ox hide lay at the center of the city and was called Byrsa—from the Greek word for “ox skin.” The year of the city’s founding is traditionally given as 814 b.c.e. At its peak, Dido’s city covered about seven square miles; the walls of Carthage, the Roman writer Livy reports, were greater than twenty miles in circumference.

Carthage grew into an important and influential city. Religious and artistic practices from Carthage’s mother city, Tyre, continued. From Carthage, Phoenician culture spread to neighboring ethnic groups in northern Africa. Over time, however, Carthage developed its own cultural identity, which is recognized today as “Punic” (from the Latin name for the Carthaginians, Poeni—related to “Phoenician”). Carthage rapidly became the leading Phoenician colony in the central Mediterranean region, so strong that it was able to impose its authority on the other Phoenician colonies of northern Africa.

The success of Carthage earned Dido respect as well as resentment. According to two ancient writers, Justin and Timaeus of Taormina, the king of the Libyans—a man called Iarbas—wished to unite his kingdom with Dido’s new city and so sought her hand in marriage. Loyal to the memory of her husband, and reluctant to allow Carthage to be ruled by Iarbas, Dido escaped the king’s entreaties by sacrificing herself on a large funerary pyre, which she had ordered to be built under pretense of fulfilling a vow.

Out of reverence for Dido’s sacrifice, and believing that the queen’s act pleased the gods and led to great prosperity for Carthage, Carthaginians continued the practice of human sacrifice well into the second century b.c.e., sometimes demanding that citizens offer their own children as sacrificial victims. The legend of Dido’s death gained popularity when the Latin poet Vergil, writing c. 29-19 b.c.e., used her story in his epic the Aeneid (English translation, 1553). In this poem, a survivor of the Trojan War called Aeneas lands at Carthage with his companions and receives a warm welcome from Dido and her people. The queen falls in love with Aeneas and reneges on her vow of chastity to her late husband by taking Aeneas as her lover. Compelled by destiny, Aeneas announces that he must leave Carthage and go to Italy to found the city of Rome. Despondent, Dido builds and lights a huge funeral pyre, large enough for Aeneas to see from his departing ship, and sacrifices herself on top of it.

Vergil purposely adjusted chronology to bring together Dido and Aeneas in his epic: The Greek historical tradition had clearly established that Dido lived several decades before Aeneas fled Troy, and Vergil was aware of this. In joining the figures in a love story, he created a poetic reason for the animosity between Carthage and Rome that was, by his day, long-standing. Carthage and Rome fought for control of the Mediterranean region, and tensions came to a head with the First (264-241 b.c.e.) and Second (218-202 b.c.e.) Punic Wars. Although these wars took place long after her death, the image of Dido was still so potent some seven centuries later that Roman politicians demonized her, portraying the queen as the source of all “Punic barbarism.” In 146 b.c.e. Roman soldiers razed Carthage.

Dido has inspired writers, artists, and performers for generations, and besides the Aeneid, her story lives on in two classics: the playDido, Queen of Carthage, by Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Nashe (c. 1586-1587) and the opera Dido and Aeneas by Henry Purcell (before December, 1689). Both works were written at a time when it was popular to make flattering comparisons between Queen Elizabeth I of England and Queen Dido of Carthage—two women celebrated for establishing overseas colonies. Despite, or perhaps because of, the promotion of the mythical version of Dido’s story, archaeologists and historians stress alternative explanations for what she did, why she left Tyre, and who she was. One explanation for why she left Tyre, an alternative to the story of internecine conflict, is that Dido and her companions were escaping harsh tributes imposed on the Phoenicians by Assyrian invaders. Similarly, alternative dates have been offered for the founding of the city: Because archaeologists have found no evidence for Phoenician settlement from 814 b.c.e., they propose that the city was actually founded in the mid-eighth century b.c.e.

Significance

Dido is important for what she represents as well as what she did. The city that she founded left a considerable mark on the cultural and economic development of the ancient Mediterranean region. Carthage’s expansion into Spain, western Africa, and Sicily brought Punic culture, the Phoenician alphabet, and new socioeconomic practices to these areas. The decision to leave Tyre spurred Phoenician interest in colonization, and waves of merchants and immigrants left in her wake. Dido’s descendants, Hasdrubal and Hannibal, led Carthage in wars against Rome—wars that allowed victorious Rome to begin the territorial expansion that culminated with the Roman Empire. Dido and Carthage provided the discursive enemy that Rome needed to justify its takeover of Sicily, Spain, and northern Africa. As a woman founder of a city, Dido represents the independence, pride, and sagacity that the Greeks and Romans feared in women and offers a rare example of an ancient woman establishing a superpower. In legend and art, Dido represents a tragic figure who, despite her success as queen of Carthage, was felled by her pride and heartsickness.

Bibliography

Burden, Michael, ed. A Woman Scorn’d: Responses to the Dido Myth. London: Faber and Faber, 1998. This is a collection of essays written by scholars of history, literature, and music, who focus on the figure of Dido as she is presented in a variety of genres. The essays on the historicity of the Dido myth are particularly useful for sifting through facts and legends and arriving at a more accurate picture of Dido’s life.

Desmond, Marilynn. Reading Dido: Gender, Textuality and the Medieval Aeneid. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994. An excellent resource for those interested in how the legendary character of Dido has been received and reinterpreted in English and French literature.

Lancel, Serge. Carthage: A History. Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1995. Lancel provides a thorough history of the city of Carthage, beginning with its foundation as a Phoenician colony and ending with its destruction by the Romans. Religion, politics, and trade relations of Carthage are discussed, and there are good sections on Dido.

Markoe, Glenn. Phoenicians. London: British Museum Press, 2000. Markoe examines the history, economy, religion, and material culture of the Phoenicians. He provides useful information on Dido’s cultural background and clarifies the historical and political significance of Phoenician overseas expansion. The maps at the beginning of the book illustrate the spread of Phoenicians and Carthaginians from the Near East to Spain.