section_path: Society and culture/Women
section_name: Women
paragraph_text: Women
  
  Women in Phoenicia took part in public events and religious processions, with depictions of banquets showing them casually sitting or reclining with men, dancing, and playing music. In most contexts, women were expected to dress and behave more modestly than men; female figures are almost always portrayed as clothed from head to feet, with the arms sometimes covered as well.
  
  Although they rarely had political power, women took part in community affairs, including in the popular assemblies that emerged in some city-states. At least one woman, Unmiashtart, is recorded to have ruled Sidon in the fifth century BC. The two most famous Phoenician women are political figures: Jezebel, portrayed in the Bible as the wicked princess of Sidon, and Dido, the semi-legendary founder and first queen of Carthage. In Virgil 's epic poem, the Aeneid, Dido is described as having been the co-ruler of Tyre, using cleverness to escape the tyranny of her brother Pygmalion and to secure an ideal site for Carthage.