_Carthage_. The foundation of this celebrated city is ascribed to
Elissa, a Tyrian princess, better known as Dido; it may therefore be
fixed at the year of the world 3158; when Joash was king of Judah; 98
years before the building of Rome, and 846 years before Christ. The
king of Tyre, father of the famous Jezebel, called in Scripture
Ethbaal, was her great grandfather. She married her near relation
Acerbas, also called Sicharbas, or Sichaeus, an extremely rich prince,
Pygmalion, king of Tyre, was her brother. Pygmalion put Sichaeus to
death in order that he might have an opportunity to seize his immense
treasures, but Dido eluded her brother's cruel avarice, by secretly
conveying away her deceased husband's possessions. With a large train
of followers she left her country, and after wandering some time,
landed on the coast of the Mediterranean, in Africa, and located her
settlement at the bottom of the gulf, on a peninsula, near the spot
where Tunis now stands. Many of the neighboring people, allured by the
prospect of gain, repaired thither to sell to those foreigners the
necessities of life, and soon became incorporated with them. The
people thus gathered from different places soon grew very numerous.
And the citizens of Utica, an African city about fifteen miles
distant, considering them as their countrymen, as descended from the
same common stock, advised them to build a city where they had
settled. The other natives of the country, from their natural esteem
and respect for strangers, likewise encouraged them to the same
object. Thus all things conspiring with Dido's views, she built her
city, which was appointed to pay in annual tribute to the Africans for
the ground it stood upon, and called it Carthage--a name that in the
Phoenician and Hebrew languages, [which have a great affinity,]
signifies the "New City." It is said that in digging the foundation, a
horse's head was found, which was thought to be a good omen, and a
presage of the future warlike genius of that people. Carthage had the
same language and national character as its parent state--Tyre. It
became at length, particularly at the period of the Punic War, one of
the most splendid cities in the world, and had under its dominion 300
cities bordering upon the Mediterranean. From the small beginning we
have described, Carthage increased till her population numbered
700,000, and the number of her temples and other public buildings was
immense. Her dominio