Elishat is a protective Deity of the city of Qart-hadasht ("New City", more familiarly known by its Roman name Carthage), Who is usually said to be the deified founding Queen of that city. She is perhaps better known by Her Greek name, Elissa (which is apparently a transliteration of Her Phoenician name into Greek). She figures in both Greek and Roman legend and is famous for Her cleverness, determination, and beauty.
In Roman legend She goes by the name Dido, which derives from a Phoenician root and means "the Wanderer" or "the Fugitive", a title also used of Ashtart as the Moon-Goddess, for the Moon "wanders" all over the sky in the course of the month. As Tanit, the great Goddess of Carthage is likely a form of Ashtart and has aspects of a Moon-Goddess, perhaps Dido was Her title as well, splintered off as an early Queen who was the patroness of the city. Elishat/Elissa/Dido received divine honors as a Goddess Herself, for She was worshiped in a sacred grove in the middle of the city.
In Roman myth (specifically the Aeneid of Virgil), Dido was a mortal woman, the daughter of the King of the Phoenician city of Tyre. She fled that city upon the murder of her husband, and landed with her followers in North Africa, where she was mockingly granted enough land as a bull's hide could encompass. She then cut the hide into extremely narrow strips, and with the resulting miles of leather thong was able to claim a good-sized chunk of land.
When the Trojan hero Aeneas came by after the wreck of the Trojan War, they fell madly in love. But Destiny had other plans for Aeneas, and he left her. Dido was heartbroken and committed suicide, stabbing herself on her funeral pyre. As she died she cursed Aeneas and the Trojans, and this is given as the reason for the undying enmity between Carthage and Rome, the nation the descendants of Aeneas would found.
Her sister Anna was said to have become the Roman Goddess Anna Perenna.
Also called: Dido Anna, Didon, Didone, Alitta