History of Tunisia for centuries assigned its foundation to a queen of Tyre, Elissa, also called Dido. The Roman historian Pompeius Trogus, a near contemporary of Virgil, describes a sinister web of court intrigue which caused Queen Elissa (Dido) to flee the city of Tyre westward with a fleet of ships. The Roman poet Virgil (70–19 B.C.) portrays Dido as the tragic, admirable heroine of his epic the "Aeneid", which contains many inventions loosely based on legendary history, and includes the story about how the Phoenician queen acquired the Byrsa. By the middle of the sixth century B.C., Carthage had grown into a
HMS Dido (37) troops from Crete to Alexandria. On 8 June 1941, Marines from "Dido" accepted the surrender of Assab in Eritrea. From July to November 1941, "Dido" was sent to the Brooklyn Navy Yard in New York City for a refit, rejoining the Eastern Mediterranean Fleet in December 1941. The first three months of 1942 were spent on convoy escort duty between Alexandria and Malta but in March that year, "Dido" took part in a bombardment of Rhodes. A week later "Dido" joined the cruisers , , , and under the command of Rear Admiral Philip Vian at the Second Battle of