CHAPTER II.
THE CARTHAGINIANS.
Although it is claimed in history that Carthage was
settled by the Phœnecians, or emigrants from Tyre,
it is by no means an established fact; for when Dido
fled from her haughty and tyrannical brother, Pygmalion,
ruler of Tyre, and sailing down the Nile,
seeking a place of protection, she halted at Carthage,
then an insignificant settlement on a peninsula in the
interior of a large bay, now called the gulf of Tunis,
on the northern shore of Africa (this was B. C.
880), the population was made up mainly of poor
people, the larger portion of whom were from Ethiopia,
and the surrounding country. Many outlaws,
murderers, highwaymen, and pirates, had taken refuge
in the new settlement. Made up of every conceivable
shade of society, with but little character to lose, the
Carthaginians gladly welcomed Dido, coming as she
did from the royal house of Tyre, and they adopted
her as the head of their government. The people became
law-abiding, and the constitution which they
adopted was considered by the ancients as a pattern of
political wisdom. Aristotle highly praises it as a
