Editing Dido (section)

==Historicity and dating==
[[File:Affresco romano - Enea e di.jpg|thumb|Dido and [[Aeneas]], from a Roman fresco, [[Pompeian Styles|Pompeian Third Style]] (10 BC – 45 AD), [[Pompeii]], Italy]]
The oxhide story which explains the name of the hill is most likely of Greek origin since ''Byrsa'' means "oxhide" in Greek, not in [[Punic language|Punic]]. The name of the hill in Punic was probably just a derivation from [[Semitic root|Semitic]] ''brt'' "fortified place". But that does not prevent other details in the story from being Carthaginian, albeit still not necessarily historical. [[Michael Grant (author)|Michael Grant]] in ''Roman Myths'' (1973) claims that "Dido-Elissa was originally a goddess", and that she was converted from a goddess into a mortal (if still legendary) queen sometime in the later fifth century BCE by a Greek writer.

Others conjecture that Dido was indeed historical, as described in the following accounts. It is unknown who first combined the story of Dido with the tradition that connected Aeneas either with Rome or with earlier settlements from which Rome traced its origin. A fragment of an epic poem by [[Gnaeus Naevius]] who died at Utica in 201 BC includes a passage which might or might not be part of a conversation between Aeneas and Dido. [[Maurus Servius Honoratus|Servius]] in his commentary (4.682; 5.4) cites [[Marcus Terentius Varro|Varro]] (1st century BC) for a version in which Dido's sister Anna killed herself for love of Aeneas.

Evidence for the historicity of Dido (which is a question independent of whether or not she ever met Aeneas) can be associated with evidence for the historicity of others in her family, such as her brother Pygmalion and their grandfather Balazeros. Both of these kings are mentioned, as well as Dido, in the list of Tyrian kings given in [[Menander of Ephesus]]'s list of the kings of Tyre, as preserved in [[Josephus]]'s ''[[Against Apion]]'', i.18. Josephus ends his quotation of Menander with the sentence "Now, in the seventh year of his [Pygmalion's] reign, his sister fled away from him and built the city of Carthage in Libya."

The [[Nora Stone]], found on Sardinia, has been interpreted by [[Frank Moore Cross]] as naming pmy[y]tn or p‘mytn, which is rendered in the Greek tradition as Pygmalion, as the king of the general who was using the stone to record his victory over the local populace.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Cross |first1=Frank Moore |title=An Interpretation of the Nora Stone |journal=Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research |date=1972 |volume=208 |issue=208 |pages=13–19 |doi=10.2307/1356374 |jstor=1356374 |s2cid=163533512 }}</ref> On paleographic grounds, the stone is dated to the 9th century BC. (Cross's translation, with a longer discussion of the Nora stone, is found in the Pygmalion article). If Cross's interpretation is correct, this presents inscriptional evidence substantiating the existence of a 9th-century-BC king of Tyre named (in Greek) Pygmalion.

Several scholars have identified Baa‘li-maanzer, the king of Tyre who gave tribute to [[Shalmaneser III]] in 841 BC, with {{script|Phnx|𐤁𐤏𐤋𐤏𐤑𐤅𐤓}} ''Ba‘al-'azor'' (Phoenician form of the name) or ''[[Baal-Eser II|Baal-Eser/Balazeros]]'' (Greek form of the name), Dido's grandfather.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Liver |first1=J. |title=The Chronology of Tyre at the Beginning of the First Millennium B.C. |journal=Israel Exploration Journal |date=1953 |volume=3 |issue=2 |pages=113–120 |jstor=27924517 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |id={{ProQuest|1300698169}} |last1=Peñuela |first1=Joaquín M. |title=La Inscripción Asiria IM 55644 y la Cronología de los Reyes de Tiro |trans-title=The Assyrian Inscription IM 55644 and the Chronology of the Kings of Tire |language=es |journal=Sefarad |volume=13 |issue=2 |year=1953 |pages=217–237 }}</ref><ref name="Cross, Nora Stone, 17, n. 11">{{harvnb|Cross|1972|loc=p. 17, n. 11}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |doi=10.1163/9789004369573_003 |chapter=The Tyrian King List: An External Synchronism from Phoenicia |title=Studies in the Chronology of the Divided Monarchy of Israel |year=1991 |pages=29–55 |isbn=978-1-55540-527-4 |first1=William Hamilton |last1=Barnes }}</ref> This lends credibility to the account in Josephus/Menander that names the kings of Tyre from [[Abibaal]] and [[Hiram I]] down to the time of Pygmalion and Dido.

Another possible reference to Balazeros is found in the ''Aeneid''. It was a common ancient practice of using the [[hypocoristicon]] or shortened form of the name that included only the divine element, so that the "Belus" that Virgil names as the father of Dido in the ''Aeneid'' may be a reference to her grandfather, Baal-Eser II/Balazeros.{{cn|date=May 2022}} [[Classicist]] T. T. Duke suggests that instead it is a hypocoristicon of [[Mattan I]], who was also known as {{transliteration|phn|MTN-BʿL}} ({{transliteration|he|Matan-Baʿal}}, 'Gift of the Lord').<ref name="Duke 1969 pp. 135">{{cite journal | last=Duke | first=T. T. | title=Review: The World of the Phoenicians | journal=The Classical Journal | publisher=The Classical Association of the Middle West and South | volume=65 | issue=3 | year=1969 | issn=0009-8353 | jstor=3296263 | page=135 | url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/3296263 | access-date=25 May 2022}}</ref>

Even more important than the inscriptional and literary references supporting the historicity of Pygmalion and Dido are chronological considerations that give something of a mathematical demonstration of the veracity of the major feature of the Pygmalion/Dido saga, namely the flight of Dido from Tyre in Pygmalion's seventh year, and her eventual founding of the city of Carthage. Classical authors give two dates for the founding of Carthage. The first is that of [[Gnaeus Pompeius Trogus|Pompeius Trogus]], mentioned above, that says this took place 72 years before the foundation of Rome. At least as early as the 1st century BC, and then later, the date most commonly used by Roman writers for the founding of Rome was 753 BC.<ref>Jack Finegan, ''Handbook of Biblical Chronology'' (rev. ed.: Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1998) 99.</ref> This would place Dido's flight in 753 + 72 = 825 BC. Another tradition, that of the Greek historian [[Timaeus (historian)|Timaeus]] ({{circa|345}}–260 BC), gives 814 BC for the founding of Carthage. Traditionally most modern scholars have preferred the 814 date. However, the publication of the Shalmaneser text mentioning tribute from Baal-Eser II of Tyre in 841 BC caused a re-examination of this question, since the best texts of Menander/Josephus only allow 22 years from the accession of Baal-Eser/Balazeros until the seventh year of Pygmalion, and measuring back from 814 BC would not allow any overlap of Balazeros with the 841 tribute to Shalmaneser. With the 825 date for the seventh year of Pygmalion, however, Balazeros's last year would coincide with 841 BC, the year of the tribute. Additional evidence in favor of the 825 date is found in the statement of Menander, repeated by Josephus as corroborated from Tyrian court records (''[[Against Apion]]'' i.17,18), that Dido's flight (or the founding of Carthage) occurred 143 years and eight months after [[Hiram I|Hiram]] of Tyre sent assistance to [[Solomon]] for the building of the Temple. Using the 825 date, this Tyrian record would then date the start of Temple construction in 969 or 968 BC, in agreement with the statement in 1 Kings 6:1 that Temple construction began in Solomon's fourth regnal year. Solomon's fourth year can be calculated as starting in the fall of 968 BC when using the widely accepted date of 931/930 BC for the division of the kingdom after the death of Solomon. These chronological considerations therefore definitely favor the 825 date over the 814 date for Dido's departure from Tyre. More than that, the agreement of this date with the timing of the tribute to Shalmaneser and the year when construction of the First Temple began provide evidence for the essential historicity of at least the existence of Pygmalion and Dido as well as their rift in 825 BC that eventually led to the founding of Carthage.

According to J. M. Peñuela, the difference in the two dates for the foundation of Carthage has an explanation if we understand that Dido fled Tyre in 825 BC, but eleven years elapsed before she was given permission by the original inhabitants to build a city on the mainland, years marked by conflict in which the Tyrians first built a small city on an island in the harbor.<ref>{{cite journal |id={{ProQuest|1300698990}} |last1=Peñuela |first1=Joaquín M. |title=La inscripción asiria Im 55644 y la cronología de los reyes de Tiro. Conclusión |trans-title=The Assyrian inscription Im 55644 and the chronology of the kings of Tyre. Conclusion |language=es |journal=Sefarad |date=1954 |volume=14 |issue=1 |pages=3–42 }}</ref> Additional information about Dido's activities after leaving Tyre are found in the Pygmalion article, along with a summary of later scholars who have accepted Peñuela's thesis.

If chronological considerations thus help to establish the basic historicity of Dido, they also serve to refute the idea that she could have had any liaison with [[Aeneas]]. Aeneas fought in the [[Trojan War]], which is conventionally dated anywhere from the 14th to the 12th centuries BC, far too early for Aeneas to have been alive in the time of Dido. Even with the date of 864 BC that historical revisionist [[David Rohl]] gives for the end of the Trojan War,<ref>David Rohl, ''The Lords of Avaris'' (London: Century, 2007) 474.</ref> Aeneas would have been about 77 years old when Dido fled Tyre in 825 BC and 88 when she began to build Carthage in 814 (following Peñuela's reconstruction), hardly consistent with the romantic intrigues between Dido and Aeneas imagined by [[Virgil]] in the ''Aeneid''. According to [[Velleius Paterculus]], [[Cádiz]] and [[Utica, Tunisia|Utica]] (roughly meaning "Old Town" opposed to Carthage meaning "New Town") were founded more than 80 years after the Trojan War<ref>{{citation|author=[[Velleius Paterculus]]|title=[[wikisource:Compendium of the History of Rome/Book I#II|History of Rome I,II]]}}</ref> and before Carthage which he claimed was founded 65 years before Rome (753 + 65 = 818 BC).<ref>{{citation|author=[[Velleius Paterculus]]|title=[[wikisource:Compendium of the History of Rome/Book I#VI|History of Rome I,VI]]}}</ref>