Dido
historical figure · 3 works · 4 mentions · 4 anchored passages
the Carthaginian woman · the Punic woman
in the texts
Ad Nationes
Legendary founder-queen of Carthage who died by fire, shown more steadfast than her husband Hasdrubal.
the fires, after the Carthaginian woman more steadfast than her husband Hasdrubal in her country's last extremities, Dido herself had taught men to brave.
And if they will not have this true, Aeneas certainly, his country in flames, deserted his comrades, to be subjected to the Punic woman, who did not, in Aeneas's cowardly fashion, accompany her husband Hasdrubal as he gently supplicated the enemy, snatching her children with her — she has it in her to have a fatherland and a father not by knowing how to flee, but she fell upon the fires of burning …
Ad Martyras
Legendary queen of Carthage cited as an example of a woman who chose death by fire.
Dido, when she was being forced to marry after her most beloved husband;
De Exhortatione Castitatis Liber
A legendary queen cited as a pagan exemplar who chose death over a second marriage.
There shall be for us, by way of testimony, certain secular women too who have attained fame for their obstinate adherence to one husband — some Dido, who, a fugitive on foreign soil, where she ought rather of her own accord to have desired the marriage of a king, yet, that she might not experience a second, chose rather to burn than to marry;