Wonder Woman of the Week: Dido of Carthage

Most of the information the average person knows about Queen Dido of Carthage (for those few who know her name), know her from the romanticised version of her story from the Aeneid. The historical Queen Dido was more than a simple love interest however and instead was a complicated monarch, a matriarch of refugees, and a world leader forced to make difficult choices for a marginalized people in a foreign land.

When most history students learn about Ancient Carthage- a Classical Age city-state in modern-day Tunisia- they often learn about Hannibal, Carthage's last great ruler. Far more important was Carthage's first great ruler- Dido. Sister of the Tyrean (modern-day Lebanon) king Pygmalion, Dido was a Phoenician aristocrat forced to grow under the shadows of her famous grandfather and powerful brother. After a disagreement with her brother (historical sources differ on what that argument was), Dido collected a group of dedicated followers and left Tyre and set out on an odyssey to find a new land for her people.

After temporary stops in Cyprus and other Mediterranean islands, Dido found a rest-stop in modern-day Tunisia. Here, Dido made a peace treaty with local Berbers (a collection of nomadic peoples of North Africa) to gain a small plot of land in what would become the city of Carthage. One story states that Dido made a deal that she would be able to build her town within a perimeter created by the hide of a single cow. In response, Dido sliced a cow's hide as thin as possible to create a perimeter of the greatest possible diameter. This mathematical concept is known today as the Dido Problem.

As Dido's settlement grew beyond the [possibly literal] cow's hide, local Berber chieftains had to start competing with the queen's success. In response, one tribal chief made a marriage demand that either Dido would need to marry him or he would declare war on the settlement and burn it to the ground. In response, Dido recognized her need to sacrifice herself for her kingdom, but also still pined for a long-dead husband whom she still loved. In response, she told the Berber chief she would agree to marry him, but would need to hold one final funeral for her dead husband. Dido created a giant pyre for her dead husband, then committed sacrifice in its flames- thus saving her city from the Berber tribes and remained faithful to her dead husband.

Dido rapidly became a deified figure in Carthaginian history and due to Carthage's role as the Roman Republic's biggest enemy, Italian history often remembers Dido as one of its greatest villains. Author Virgil of the Roman Empire wrote The Aeneid about the mythical founder of Rome Aeneas which depicts Dido as a distraction for the protagonist on his route to finding a new homeland for his own refugee people. During Medieval and 20th Century Italian history, Dido was demonized for a trio of reasons. Because she was a woman, she challenged the misogyny of toxic Italian masculinity. Because she was an independent North African monarch, she represented Italy's decline from its massive territorial empire under Ancient Rome. Additionally, Dido descended from the Phoenicians- a Semitic people like the Hebrews- which were largely demonized by Medieval Christians and 20th Century fascists.