Belus, king of Tyre, fathered Dido, Anna Perenna, and Pygmalion. After Belus's death, Pygmalion murdered Dido's husband Sychaeus, driving Dido and Anna Perenna to flee Tyre and found Carthage.
Aeneas and Dido became lovers in Carthage after sheltering together in a cave during a storm. Jupiter ordered Aeneas to leave, and Dido took her own life on a funeral pyre.
Dido married Sychaeus, a wealthy priest of Hercules in Tyre. After Pygmalion murdered him, Sychaeus's ghost appeared to Dido in a dream, revealing his hidden treasure and urging her to flee.
Juno favored Dido and Carthage, conspiring with Venus to bring about Dido's love for Aeneas. In the Aeneid, Juno arranged a storm to drive the lovers into a cave together.
Dido cursed Aeneas and his descendants as he sailed from Carthage, prophesying eternal war between their peoples. Romans understood this as foretelling Hannibal and the Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage.
Dido fled Tyre to escape her brother Pygmalion after he murdered her husband Sychaeus for his gold. She outwitted Pygmalion by casting sand-filled bags overboard, tricking his agents into believing she had destroyed the treasure.
Dido ruled Carthage as its founding queen, governing the city with wisdom and justice until her love for Aeneas and his subsequent departure led to her death on the funeral pyre.
Dido founded Carthage after fleeing Tyre, famously cutting an oxhide into thin strips to claim enough land for the city's citadel, the Byrsa, on the North African coast.
Cupid took the form of Ascanius at Dido's banquet and breathed invisible fire into the Carthaginian queen, kindling an irresistible passion for Aeneas that fulfilled Venus's scheme to protect her son and his fleet.
Dido invoked the Furies in her dying curse against Aeneas, calling on the avengers of broken oaths to pursue him and his descendants. Her curse channeled the Furies' power into the enmity between Carthage and Rome.
Jupiter ordered Aeneas to abandon Dido and Carthage to fulfill his destiny of founding Rome. His divine command overrode Aeneas's love, and Dido cursed Jupiter's favored lineage with eternal war.
Proserpina claimed Dido's soul after Iris cut her hair to release it. Because Dido died before her fated time by suicide, the queen of the underworld's intervention was required to complete her passage to the realm of the dead.
In Virgil's Aeneid, Venus sent her son Cupid disguised as Aeneas's son Ascanius to make Queen Dido fall passionately in love with Aeneas, ensuring the Trojans would receive shelter in Carthage.
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