Dido, or Elishat/Elissa, the Phoenician princess behind Carthage

825 BCE, North Africa.

Elishat(Elissa), daughter of King Mattan of Tyre, fled Tyre with some of her attendants and followers, after her brother, King Pygmalion(Pu’mayton), murdered her husband Sicharbas. On the coast of North Africa, she asked for a piece of land that could be covered with an ox-hide. Hiarbas, King of the local Berbers, agreed. “What’s this lass thinking? ” he thought.

“Cut the ox-hide into pieces, and make it into a semi-circle. ” Ordered Elishat.

Hiarbas was surprised by this Tyrian princess. How could she think about this! He was shocked.

In this way, Elishat carved out a significant portion of land for the fleeing Tyrians. 11 years later, Kart Hadasht(or Kiryat Haẖadasha in Hebrew, the closest surviving language to Phoenician), or Carthage, was formally founded on the site. Elishat herself was later known as Dido, which was a Berber name possibly means “the brave woman”.

The story above is based on Pompeius Trogus’ account of the foundation of Carthage, while I have reconstructed the Canaanite name of Elissa based on Hebrew roots. According to the same source, later, Hiarbas asked for the hand of Dido, and she committed suicide on pyre to honour the memory of her dead husband. Josephus quoted Menander in Against Apion that Dido fled Tyre on the seventh year of King Pygmalion and 143 years after King Hiram sent Lebanese cedar to help Solomon to build the temple, which would be consistent with the Trogus’ account.

Virgil, while writing Aeneid, the founding epic of Romans as descendants of Trojans, added the story of Dido to his own epic, making Dido a tragic heroine who could not control her passion. This synthesized story later becomes a classic in its own right.

Carthaginians saw Dido as one and the same with their goddess Taanit, while Romans saw her as an intelligent woman who was ultimately defeated by passion. Virgil’s version is pretty much nonsense, as Troy fell centuries before the reign of King Mattan I of Tyre, while Trogus and Menander’s version would be much more plausible and consistent with contemporary Phoenician activities.