Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/363

 GROWTH OF CA1JT1IAGK. 347 we have a foundation-legend, decorating the moment of birth, and then nothing farther. The Tyrian princess Dido or Elisa, daugh- ter of Belus, sister of Pygmalion king of Tyre, and wife of the wealthy Sichrous priest of Herakles in that city, is said to have been left a widow in consequence of the murder of Sichocus by Pygmalion, who seized the treasures belonging to his victim. But Dido found means to disappoint him of his booty, possessed herself of the gold which had tempted Pygmalion, and secretly emigrated, carrying with her the sacred insignia of Herakles : a considerable body of Tyrians followed her. She settled at Car- thage on a small hilly peninsula joined by a narrow tongue of land to the continent, purchasing from the natives as much land as could be surrounded by an ox's hide, which she caused to be cut into the thinnest strip, and thus made it sufficient for the site of her first citadel, Byrsa, which afterwards grew up into the great city of Carthage. As soon as her new settlement had ac- quired footing, she was solicited in marriage by several princes of the native tribes, especially by the Gcetulian Jarbas, who threat- ened war if he were refused. Thus pressed by the clamors of her own people, who desired to come into alliance with the natives, yet irrevocably determined to maintain exclusive fidelity to her first husband, she escaped the conflict by putting an end to her life. She pretended to acquiesce in the proposition of a second marriage, requiring only delay sufficient to offer an expiatory sacrifice to the manes of Sichrcus : a vast funeral pile was erected, and many victims slain upon it, in the midst of which Dido pierced her own bosom with a sword, and perished in the flames. Such is the legend to which Virgil has given a new color by inter- weaving the adventures of ./Eneas, and thus connecting the foun- dation legends of Carthage and Rome, careless of his deviation from the received mythical chronology. Dido was worshipped as a goddess at Carthage until the destruction of the city :' and it 1 " Quamdiu Carthago invicta fuit, pro Dea culta est." (Justin, xviii, 6 ; Virgil, JEneid, i, 340-370.) We trace this legend about Dido up to Timacus (Timrci Frag. 23, ed. Didot) : Philistns seems to have followed a different story ; he said that Carthage had been founded by Azor and Karchedon j Piiilist Fr. 50). Appian notices both stories (De Rcb. Pun. 1): that of Dido was current both among the Romans and Carthaginians : of Zorus (or E/.orus) and KurcliGdon, the second is evidently of Greek coinage, the first seems genuine Phcnician: see Josephus cont. Apion. i, c. 18-21