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) "Dido" was sent to Scapa Flow for working up in September 1940. Part of this included high-speed sweeps off Fair Isle and Greenland. Immediately after this, "Dido"s first mission, in November 1940, was to escort the aircraft carrier to West Africa, ferrying aircraft. "Dido" then spent four months on convoy duty in the Atlantic before running supplies to Malta where she joined the Eastern Mediterranean Fleet in April 1941. In May of that year "Dido" was sent to Crete and assisted in the evacuation of the British forces. On 29 May 1941 "Dido" was badly damaged by bombs whilst taking