DIDO

Properly a surname of the Phoenician goddess of the moon, the wandering Astarte, who was also the goddess of the citadel of Carthage. The name of this goddess and some traits of her story were transferred to Elissa, daughter of the Tyrian king Mutton (the Belus or Agenor of the Greeks). Elissa came from Tyre to Africa, where she founded Carthage. She, was flying from her brother Pygmalion, the murderer of her husband and paternal uncle Sicharbaal or Sicharbas (called in Greek Acerbas and in Latin Sychaeus). To escape wedding the barbarian king Iarbas she erected a funeral pyre and stabbed herself upon it. According to the later story, followed or invented by Vergil, the tragedy was due to her despair at her desertion by Aeneas.