Di´do

A daughter of Belus, king of Tyre, who married Sichæus or Sicharbus, her uncle, who was priest of Hercules. Pygmalion killed Sichæsus to obtain his immense riches, and Dido, disconsolate at the lo of her husband, set sail with a number of Tyrians in quest of a place in which to form a settlement. A storm drove her fleet on the African coast, and she bought of the inhabitants as much land as could be covered by a bull’s hide cut into thongs. On this land she built a citadel called Byrsa, which was the nucleus of a great city. Her subjects wished her to marry again, but she refused, and erected a funeral pile, on which she ascended and stabbed herself to death.