Tyre, Alyssa's home.Ancient Greek and Roman writers said that Alyssa (know (Tyre, Lebanon)
Tyre, Alyssa's home.
Ancient Greek and Roman writers said that Alyssa (known as Dido as well) was the founder and first Queen of Carthage. Alyssa was the daughter of the King of Tyre (a city in the country now known as Lebanon). She was married to Acerbas. When Alyssa's brother killed Acerbas, Alyssa ran away. She took some of her people with her. They went first to Cyprus, and then to a country now known as Tunisia.
When they got to Africa, Alyssa asked the Berber ruler, if she could buy some land for her people to start a city. He said that she could buy as much land as she could cover with the skin of a dead ox. She told her people to cut the skin into very thin strips. They laid all the strips out to mark the borders. This gave them a very big piece of land. Alyssa and her people built a city on the land. The city was named Carthage, and Alyssa was its first queen.
When he saw what a rich city Carthage was, the berber ruler wanted to marry Alyssa. He told her that if she did not marry him, he would make war on Carthage. Alyssa did not want to marry him. Before her wedding, she built a large fire. And she told him that the fire was a ceremony to honor Acerbas. She said that when the ceremony was finished, he would be her new husband. Instead, she climbed onto the pyre where the fire was burning. Then she killed herself with a sword. After she died, the people of Carthage worshipped her as a goddess. Carthage stayed a very rich and powerful city for 600 years.
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