I'm John Batchler, and I welcome the author and professor Eve MacDonald. Her new book is Carthage,

a new history. Eve teaches classicism in Wales, but at the same time, is here to help me understand

why Carthet? Why, after 2,000 years, is it such a compelling story compared to Rome that conquered?

Why is it told around the edges by Roman scholars again and again? We don't have, to my knowledge, a Carthaginian scholar. We have Greeks.

We have Romans. We have people who want to be Roman citizens and become Roman citizens, but no

Carthaginian. Well, there's that short version. History is written by the winners. But, Eva, very good evening to you. Thank you, Professor Dido. Of course we know her because of the opera. Of course we know her because of the play. Of course we know her because of Virgil. Who was she? What does the historical record tell us?

Good evening to you. Hello, John. Thank you so much for having me on. It's a pleasure to be here.

Dido. Wow. She is, she's all sorts of different things. Dido is a figure who was created and, you know, remembered about Carthage by the Romans,

who wrote stories about their wars with Carthage.

And she's a figurehead for that as the founder of the city of Carthage.

She's a Phoenician woman.

And the Phoenicians were, of course, a group of people who were from the Levant,

from the city-states of the eastern Mediterranean. And in the 9th century BC, they were colonizing

all across the Mediterranean. And so Dido is a woman who is connected to the city of Tyre, which is in

southern Lebanon today. And she set off

from Tyre with a group to found a new city. And she founded a new city at a place called Carthage.

Karthadashd just means the new city. So like Naples is just Neapolis, new city in Greek, the same with Carthage. Dido is the eponymous founder.

She's the originator of the city of Carthage, and all these myths and stories revolve around here.

We have many different versions of Dido. We have Greek versions of Dido when she's not even called Dido.

She's called Alyssa.

And this, we think, reflects her name in the Phoenician language, which is Elisht.

And she's a princess from Tyre.

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