What is Dido, Queen of Carthage?
[[File:Heinrich Friedrich Füger 006.jpg|thumb|''The death of Dido'' by the German painter, Heinrich Friedrich Füger]] [[Ancient Greece|Ancient Greek]] and [[ancient Rome|Roman]] writers said that '''Dido''' was the founder and first [[Queen]] of [[Carthage]]. Carthage was a city in the country now known as [[Tunisia]]. Dido lived in the [[9th century BC]] (about 3000 years ago). Some parts of her life may be true. Other parts are [[myth]]s. She is best known from the story about her in the ''[[Aeneid]]'' by the [[Ancient Rome|Roman]] poet [[Virgil]]. In some writings about her, she is called '''Alyssa''' or '''Elissa'''. She was also [[worship]]ped as a [[goddess]] in ancient Carthage. ==Early stories about her life== [[File:Dido purchases Land for the Foundation of Carthage.jpg|thumb|left|Dido buying the land for [[Carthage]]]] The oldest story about Dido was written by Timaeus. He was an ancient Greek [[historian]] who lived in the [[3rd century BC]]. One hundred years later, a Roman historian, Pompeius Trogus, wrote about her. His story about her is now lost, but a later Roman historian, Justin, wrote a [[summary]] of Trogus' story. In the stories by Timaeus and Trogus, Dido was the daughter of the King of [[Tyre, Lebanon|Tyre]] (a city in the country now known as [[Lebanon]]). She was married to Acerbas who was a [[priest]] of [[Hercules]]. When Dido's brother Pygmalion killed Acerbas, Dido ran away. She took some of her people with her. They went first to [[Cyprus]], and then to the north coast of [[Africa]] in the place now known as [[Tunisia]]. When they got to Africa, Dido asked the [[Berber people|Berber]] ruler, a man named Iarbus, if she could buy some land to for her people to start a city. He said that she could buy as much land as she could cover with the skin of a dead [[ox]]. She told her people to cut the skin into very thin strips. They laid all the strips out to mark the [[border]]s. This gave them a very big piece of land. Dido and her people built a city on the land. The city was named Car