‘Sing, Muses, sing to me a story of heroes and the deathless gods who govern earth, sea and sky.’
That is what Aeneas asks as he waits alone for the Queen of Carthage.
Her palace was the first thing he saw from the prow of his ship. As dusk fell, the hill of Carthage was picked out like a flaming crown, and the palace was the jewel at its peak. Like something out of a dream. In the hill’s shadow, gentle waves lap at a bustling port. Towering tenements reach almost to the shore.
It could be a haven. And Aeneas is in desperate need of one. Squeezed into his ship’s hold are the last remnants of Troy: those families lucky enough to escape the devastation. They are destined to found a new city, Rome, but their wanderings have felt endless. First Aenea, then Ortygia, now Pergama, now Sicily. At each port, the exiles have met with suspicion, mistrust, even violence. When they have been shown hospitality, it has been short-lived.
And so that is why he goes to the palace of Carthage alone.
That is why he asks the Muses to tell him of this queen: Dido.
The words of the Muses’s song are winged, a great flock of sea birds, of cormorants. Though they may roost in Carthage, their story is a far-flung migration. It begins on the other side of the Mediterranean amid the docks and wharves of Tyre.
A ship is weighing anchor there. Dido’s ship.
Her brother, Pygmalion, has just been crowned king and his first act is assassination: Dido’s husband, Acerbas. The murder of the richest man in Tyre is an easy way for Pygmalion to fill the royal coffers.
And now Dido’s only choice is to set sail and flee. But she does not flee alone. Squeezed into the ship’s hold with Acerbas’s gold are one hundred of the foremost families of Tyre. They have all chosen exile with her, lest they too should suffer the consequences of Pygmalion’s avarice.
So where next do the Muses’s take their song? How long do those winged word’s flit about the sails or perch atop the mast?
Longer than the princess cares to remember. Years. First Cyprus, then Crete, now Pylos, now Sicily. At each port, the exiles are met with suspicion, mistrust, even violence. When they are shown hospitality, it is short-lived.
With each departure, the ship, once so weighed down with passengers and gold, rides higher and higher in the water. Rations, repairs, bribes – by the time they reach North Africa, there is little more than a single chest of Acerbas’s gold left.
Can you imagine their relief then when they see it, that flaming crown upon the horizon. The hillcrest caught in the setting sun. Like something out of a dream. In the hill’s shadow, gentle waves break against golden sand. Grasses that reach almost to the shore.
But this haven is no uncharted land.
No sooner have they docked than Dido is forced to tackle with the avarice of another king: Iarbas.
He knows of their desperation – these exiles from Tyre. He can smell it: the tang of salt baked in the sun. So, of course, he demands a price for his hospitality: a fifth of their gold merely to remain docked.
But Dido is no fool; she knows his levies will only grow more extortionate. So she hatches a plan.
She has her attendants set out a place to parlay on the beach: the hide of an ox to cover the sand, a canopy overhead to keep away the sun, and the last chest of her gold to invite Iarbas’s interest.
‘We do not wish merely to dock, O king. We wish to settle. How much to buy a portion of land?’
Iarbas insists it will be more than she could ever offer.
‘Are you so sure?’ Dido replies, flashing a playful grin.
‘Take the size of this hide on which we sit. How about a chest of gold for each tract of land that this hide can cover?’
It is too rich an offer to turn down; Iarbas can only imagine the wealth that must weigh down that ship in the bay. But when it comes time to pay, Dido hands over just the one chest.
‘You think to settle one hundred families on just the one scrap of land?’ the king barks, gesturing at the hide.
And Dido nods. She has one of her attendants take a knife and begin to work the animal skin, moving the blade in the most delicate of strokes. One pass across the hide and he cuts away a strip so fine it is little more than a membrane, little more than a film, little more than the skin of a bubble.
Then he does the same again.
Before the next day dawns, Dido’s attendants have laid out thousands of the strips, enough to cover not only the whole beach but the hill too.
‘The New City’ they come to call it in the language of Tyre: Carthage.
The Muses bring their story to a close, but Aeneas continues to hear their singing, their dancing, their playing of the lyre and the flute. It echoes faintly about the palace hall. Aeneas follows the sound to a balcony, one that looks down upon the hill, the city and all the coast: the whole of Carthage in a single vista.
Another sister of the Muses stands there. Another story. Her audience is a woman, and as sure as Aeneas knows day from night, he knows her for the Queen of Carthage. Dido.
She turns at the sound of Aeneas’s steps. She sees the Muses who accompany him too. And she flashes a playful grin.
‘What song did they sing for you?’ Aeneas asks.
‘The story of a wanderer,’ Dido answers, ‘One who will come to found a great city. And for you?’
‘The story of a wanderer,’ Aeneas echoes, ‘But one who has already founded hers.’
Commissioned by HistoryHit for The Ancients podcast
Written by Andrew Hulse