Dido

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Dīdo, legendary daughter of a king of Tyre called Belus by Virgil. She is said to have had the name Elissa at Tyre, but subsequently, at Carthage, Dido. She was married to her uncle Sychaeus, who was murdered for his great wealth by her brother Pygmalion when the latter was king of Tyre. Dido fled with some followers to Libya and founded the city of Carthage: Iarbas, a local king, had given her as much land as might be covered by an ox-hide; this she had cut into strips and stretched. To escape marriage with Iarbas she built a pyre as though for an offering and threw herself on to the flames. For Virgil's adaptation of her story see AENEID.

In Roman mythology, the founder and queen of Carthage in north Africa. She committed suicide in grief over the departure of her lover, the hero Aeneas.