The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes and Persians, Macedonians and Grecians (Vol. 1 of 6)Rollin, Charles
History
The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes and Persians, Macedonians and Grecians (Vol. 1 of 6)
Rollin, Charles
History, Ancient
Many of the neighbouring people, invited by the prospect of lucre,
repaired thither to sell these new comers the necessaries of life; and
shortly after incorporated themselves with them. These inhabitants, who
had been thus gathered from different places, soon grew very numerous. The
citizens of Utica, considering them as their countrymen, and as descended
from the same common stock, deputed envoys with very considerable
presents, and exhorted them to build a city in the place where they had
first settled. The natives of the country, from the esteem and respect
frequently shown to strangers, did as much on their part. Thus all things
conspiring with Dido’s views, she built her city, which was charged with
the payment of an annual tribute to the Africans for the ground it stood
upon; and called Carthada,(572) or Carthage, a name that, in the
Phoenician and Hebrew tongues, (which have a great affinity,) signifies
the New City. It is said, that when the foundations were dug, a horse’s
head was found, which was thought a good omen, and a presage of the future
warlike genius of that people.(573)
This princess was afterwards courted by Iarbas king of Getulia, and
threatened with a war in case of refusal. Dido, who had bound herself by
an oath not to consent to a second marriage, being incapable of violating
the faith she had sworn to Sichæus, desired time for deliberation, and for
appeasing the manes of her first husband by sacrifice. Having therefore
ordered a pile to be raised, she ascended it; and drawing out a dagger
which she had concealed under her robe, stabbed herself with it.(574)
Virgil has made a great alteration in this history, by supposing that
Æneas, his hero, was contemporary with Dido, though there was an interval
of near three centuries between the one and the other; Carthage being
built three hundred years after the destruction of Troy. This liberty is
very excusable in a poet, who is not tied to the scrupulous accuracy of an
historian; and we admire, with great reason, the judgment which he has
shown in his plan, when, to interest the Romans (for whom he wrote) in his
subject, he has the art of introducing into it the implacable hatred which
subsisted between Carthage and Rome, and ingeniously deduces the original
of it from the very remote foundation of those two rival cities.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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