Wait, is it all French? Always has been. (POLL)

How do you feel that some civilizations will have three leaders associated with them at launch?

  • I like it. Vive la France!

    Votes: 40 26.1%
  • I don't like it. Other leaders could have taken those spots in order to diversify the roster.

    Votes: 73 47.7%
  • I don't know, I feel ambivalent about it.

    Votes: 24 15.7%
  • I'm not enthusiastic about it, but It's fine.

    Votes: 7 4.6%
  • I don't really care.

    Votes: 9 5.9%

  • Total voters
    153
Am I crazy or do I distinctly recall you saying (many time) that Dido was at the very least plausible enough, @Zaarin ? (Wondering if anything new has come up that support the change, or I'm just misremembering)
I have previously endorsed the view that her story was plausible, and I've gone back and forth on the subject as to whether she was a mythologized person or just a myth. There's definitely enough evidence to say that the story is probably Punic in origin (though Timaeus probably got his version of the story from a Greek source, as byrsa means "hide" in Greek, not Punic; the Punic name probably just means "citadel"; Justin's version is older and may come directly from Carthage or from Carthaginians on Sicily). There is some evidence for her brother Pygmalion/Pumayyaton's existence, although the name was quite common (especially on Cyprus, where Pumay was a popular god). The name Elissa looks Semitic (I've seen several proposed etymologies), though Dido is more suspect (and is attested later and only in Roman sources so it may be an innovation). The account of Carthage being founded by priests of Baal Hammon and sacred prostitutes from Cyprus even has some merit (there is some evidence that Carthage may have been a politico-religious experiment: Baal Hammon and Tannit, the central deities of Carthage, and the tophet that is associated with them, are marginally attested at best in Lebanon, and unlike the Phoenician city-states, Carthage was an oligarchic republic rather than a monarchy). However, most of the authors in The Oxford Handbook of Phoenician Studies agreed that Elissa's story was a founding myth, albeit one that is illuminative of Carthaginian culture. So she could have been a real person who was mythologized, but I've tempered my position since doing more reading.

(I still think she's a good leader choice, though, as a solid embodiment of Phoenician culture and one that conveniently avoids association with the Punic Wars.)
 
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