tragic queen Elyssa, foundress of Carthage. Her brother, Pygmalion slew her husband, the chief priest Acharbas and in the uproar fled with Tyrian nobles, bearing gold on a fleet of Phoenician ships.
Then on Mauritanian coastline she bought some land to build a new city-state, from the vantage of Byrsa on which her citadel stands 'circumfenced' by strips of ox-hide strung along the perimeter of the hill
The Berber chieftain rather stingily offered as much land as an ox-hide could cover and later on sought her hand in marriage as the city grew in wealth and regional importance but she threw herself into flames
of a priestly funeral pyre to Tanit, in self-immolation for the dead god of vegetation, Adonis-Eshmun; Dido, as she was known, hence was elevated to goddess and patroness of that great Punic realm of Carthage