Dido

Nationality/Culture

Greek/Roman

Pronunciation

DYE-doh

Alternate Names

Elissa

Appears In

Virgil's Aeneid, Ovid's Heroides

Lineage

Daughter of King Belus of Tyre

Character Overview

In Greek mythology , Dido was the founder and queen of Carthage, a city on the northern coast of Africa. She was the daughter of Belus (or Mutto), a king of Tyre in Phoenicia (pronounced fuh-NEE-shuh), and the sister of Pygmalion (pronounced pig-MAY-lee-uhn). Dido is best known for her love affair with the Trojan hero Aeneas (pronounced i-NEE-uhs).

King Belus had wanted his son and daughter to share royal power equally after his death, but Pygmalion seized the throne and murdered Dido's husband. Dido and her followers fled from Tyre, landing on the shores of North Africa. There a local ruler named Iarbas (pronounced ee-AR-bus) agreed to sell Dido as much land as the hide of a bull could cover. Dido cut a bull's hide into thin strips and used it to outline a large area of land. On that site, Dido built Carthage and became its queen.

Carthage became a prosperous city. Iarbas pursued Dido, hoping to marry her, but Dido refused. After her husband's death, she had sworn never to marry again. Iarbas continued his advances, and even threatened Carthage with war unless Dido agreed to be his wife. Seeing no other alternative, Dido killed herself by throwing herself into the flames of a funeral pyre, a large pile of burning wood used in some cultures to cremate a dead body. In another version of the story, she mounted the pyre and stabbed herself, surrounded by her people.

The Roman poet Virgil used part of the story of Dido in his epic poem the Aeneid. In Virgil's account, the Trojan leader Aeneas was shipwrecked on the shore near Carthage at the time when Dido was building the new city. After welcoming Aeneas and his men, the queen fell deeply in love with him. In time, the two lived together as wife and husband, and Aeneas began to act as though he were king of Carthage. Then the god Jupiter (the Roman version of the Greek god Zeus) sent a messenger to tell Aeneas that he could not remain in Carthage. Rather, his destiny—or future path in life as determined by the gods—was to found a new city for the Trojans in Italy that would eventually become Rome.

Dido was devastated when she heard that Aeneas planned to leave. She had believed that the two of them would eventually marry. Aeneas insisted that he had no choice but to obey the gods, and shortly afterward, he and his men set sail for Italy. When Dido saw the ships sail out to sea, she ordered a funeral pyre to be built. She climbed onto it, cursed Aeneas, and using a sword he had given her, stabbed herself to death.

Dido in Context

For Romans, the story of Dido and Aeneas is a convenient way of explaining the rift between the people of Carthage and the people of Rome. Before Dido killed herself, she cursed not only Aeneas but all Trojans and their descendants (the Romans). This hatred between the two regions was seen as the cause of the Punic Wars, fought between the Romans and the Carthaginians. Unlike the Trojan War, the mythical battle mentioned in Homer's Iliad and Virgil's Aeneid, the Punic Wars were historical events well documented by people living at the time.

The Punic Wars took place during the second and third centuries bce. As the Roman Empire expanded throughout the region of the Mediterranean Sea, small but prosperous kingdoms such as Carthage were subject to attack by Roman forces. The Carthaginians held off many Roman assaults; during the Second Punic War, the master military commander Hannibal even marched his forces—including a group of elephants—across the Alps into Italy, earning several victories against the Romans. In the end, however, a Roman attack on Carthage resulted in the city's complete surrender and subsequent destruction in 146 bce.

Key Themes and Symbols

Although the story of Dido and Aeneas may seem to represent tragic love, Romans viewed Dido as a symbol of the bad feelings between Carthage and Rome. She was not seen as a sympathetic character, but as a vengeful enemy or a woman scorned. In the myth, Aeneas—who is viewed as the hero and founder of the Roman Empire—chooses his destiny to found Rome over his love for Dido. The themes of abandonment and the importance of duty over love are central to the myth.

Dido in Art, Literature, and Everyday Life

Famed English playwright Christopher Marlowe wrote a play about the legend titled Dido, Queen of Carthage, which was first published in 1594. In 1689, the English composer Henry Purcell wrote an opera, Dido and Aeneas, that was based on the story and characters from the myth. Dido also appears as a character in Dante's Inferno, as one of the damned souls in the second circle of hell .

The popular singer/songwriter Dido Armstrong, better known simply as Dido, was named after the mythical queen of Carthage.

Read, Write, Think, Discuss

Dido commits suicide after Aeneas leaves her behind to continue on his journey to found Rome. In modern societies, suicide is seen as a serious problem, especially among teenagers. In the United States, suicide is the third most common cause of death for people between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four. Why do you think teen suicide occurs at such an alarming rate? Do failed relationships, such as the one between Dido and Aeneas, often play a role in teen suicide? Using your library, the Internet, or other available resources, find a list of risk factors for teen suicide and compare these to the reasons you listed.

SEE ALSO Aeneas; Aeneid, The; Iliad, The; Pygmalion and Galatea