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
Military of Carthage where the Punic language was to persist until the 5th century AD. The idea that mercantile business and warlike spirit are contradictory dates to the Age of Enlightenment and is generally not shared by ancient sources, such as Virgil, who writes in "Aeneid" 1,444f. on Carthage: for this reason shall the people be glorious in war and acquire food easily for centuries ("sic nam fore bello / egregiam et facilem victu per saecula gentem"). Livy already points out that Carthage did house a body of at least 40'000 professional soldiers until sometime after the Second Punic War. Other sources can