=189.= The Libyan natives, who knew the value of commerce and the wealth of Phœnician colonies, were inclined to be friendly; but their first transaction with the new settlers promised advantages only to one side. Dido proposed to lease from them as much land as could be covered with a bullock’s hide. The yearly ground-rent being settled, she then ordered the hide to be cut into the thinnest possible strips, and thus surrounded a large portion of land, on which she built the fortress of Byr´sa. The colony prospered, however, and was strengthened by the alliance of Utica and other Tyrian settlements on the same coast. By similar arrangements with the Libyans, the queen obtained permission to build the town of CARTHAGE, which became the seat of a great commercial empire. =190.= As the New City[19] rose to a high degree of power and wealth, Hiar´bas, a neighboring king, sent to demand a marriage with Dido, threatening war in case of refusal. The queen seemed to consent for the benefit of her state; but at the end of three months’ preparation, she ascended a funeral pile upon which sacrifices had been offered to the shades of Acer´bas, and declaring to her people, that she was going to her husband, as they had desired, plunged a sword into her breast. Dido continued to be worshiped as a divinity in Carthage as long as the city existed. [Sidenote: B. C. 585.] =191.= So far our story is mixed with fable, though containing, doubtless, a large proportion of truth. What we certainly know is, that the latest colony of Tyre soon became the most powerful; that it grew by the alliance and immigration of the neighboring Libyans, as well as of its sister colonies; and that it gained in wealth by the destruction[20] of its parent city in the Babylonian wars. While the Levantine commerce of Tyre fell to the Greeks, that of the West was naturally inherited by the Carthaginians. =192.= The African tribes, to whom the colonists were at first compelled to pay tribute for the slight foot-hold they possessed, became at length totally subjugated. They cultivated their lands for the benefit of Carthage, and might at any time be forced to contribute half their movable wealth to her treasury, and all their young men to her armies. The Phœnician settlements gradually formed themselves into a confederacy, of which Carthage was the head, though she possessed no authority beyond the natural leadership of the most powerful. Her dominions extended westward to the Pillars of Hercules, and down the African coast to the end of the Atlas range; on the east her boundaries were fixed, after a long contest with the Greek city of Cyre´ne, at the bottom of the Great Syrtis, or gulf, which indents the northern shore.