DIDO, or Elissa, the reputed founder of Carthage (q.v.), in Africa, daughter of the Tyrian king Metten (Mutto, Methres, Belus), wife of Acerbas (more correctly Sicharbas; Sychaeus in Virgil), a priest of Hercules. Her husband having been slain by her brother Pygmalion, Dido fled to Cyprus, and thence to the coast of Africa, where she purchased from a local chieftain Iarbas a piece of land on which she built Carthage. The city soon began to prosper and Iarbas sought Dido’s hand in marriage, threatening her with war in case of refusal. To escape from him, Dido constructed a funeral pile, on which she stabbed herself before the people (Justin xviii. 4-7). Virgil, in defiance of the usually accepted chronology, makes Dido a contemporary of Aeneas, with whom she fell in love after his landing in Africa, and attributes her suicide to her abandonment by him at the command of Jupiter (Aeneid, iv.). Dido was worshipped at Carthage as a divinity under the name of Caelestis, the Roman counterpart of Tanit, the tutelary goddess of Carthage. According to Timaeus, the oldest authority for the story, her name was Theiosso, in Phoenician Helissa, and she was called Dido from her wanderings, Dido being the Phoenician equivalent of πλανῆτις (Etymologicum Magnum, s.v.); some modern scholars, however, translate the name by “beloved.” Timaeus makes no mention of Aeneas, who seems to have been introduced by Naevius in his Bellum Poenicum, followed by Ennius in his Annales.
For the variations of the legend in earlier and later Latin authors, see O. Rossbach in Pauly-Wissowa’s Realencyclopädie, v. pt. 1 (1905); O. Meltzer’s Geschichte der Karthager, i. (1879), and his article in Roscher’s Lexikon der Mythologie.
DIDON, HENRI (1840-1900), French Dominican, was born at Trouvet, Isère, on the 17th of March 1840. He joined the Dominicans, under the influence of Lacordaire, in 1858, and completed his theological studies at the Minerva convent at Rome. The influence of Lacordaire was shown in the zeal displayed by Didon in favour of a reconciliation between philosophy and science. In 1871 his fame had so much grown that he was chosen to deliver the funeral oration over the murdered archbishop of Paris, Monseigneur G. Darboy. He also delivered some discourses at the church of St Jean de Beauvais in Paris on the relations between science and religion; but his utterances, especially on the question of divorce, were deemed suspicious by his superiors, and his intimacy with Claude Bernard the physiologist was disapproved. He was interdicted from preaching and sent into retirement at the convent of Corbara in Corsica. After eighteen months he emerged, and travelled in Germany, publishing an interesting work upon that country, entitled Les Allemands (English translation by R. Ledos de Beaufort, London, 1884). On his return to France in 1890 he produced his best known work, Jésus-Christ (2 vols., Paris), for which he had qualified himself by travel in the Holy Land. In the same year he became director of the Collège Albert-le-Grand at Arcueil, and founded three auxiliary institutions, École Lacordaire, École Laplace and École St Dominique. He wrote, in addition, several works on educational questions, and augmented his fame as an eloquent preacher by discourses preached during Lent and Advent. He died at Toulouse on the 13th of March 1900.
See the biographies by J. de Romano (1891), and A. de Coulanges (Paris, 1900); and especially the work of Stanislas Reynaud, entitled Le Père Didon, sa vie et son œuvre (Paris, 1904).
DIDOT, the name of a family of learned French printers and publishers. François Didot (1689-1757), founder of the family, was born at Paris. He began business as a bookseller and printer in 1713, and among his undertakings was a collection of the travels of his friend the Abbé Prévost, in twenty volumes (1747). It was remarkable for its typographical perfection, and was adorned with many engravings and maps. François Ambroise Didot (1730-1804), son of François, made important improvements in type-founding, and was the first to attempt printing on vellum paper. Among the works which he published was the famous collection of French classics prepared by order of Louis XVI. for the education of the Dauphin, and the folio edition of L’Art de vérifier les dates. Pierre François Didot (1732-1795), his brother, devoted much attention to the art of type-founding and to paper-making. Among the works which issued from his press was an edition in folio of the Imitatio Christi (1788). Henri Didot (1765-1852), son of Pierre François, is celebrated for his “microscopic” editions of various standard works, for which he engraved the type when nearly seventy years of age. He was also the engraver of the assignats issued by the Constituent and Legislative Assemblies and the Convention. Didot Saint-Léger, second son of Pierre François, was the inventor of the paper-making machine known in England as the Didot machine. Pierre Didot (1760-1853), eldest son of François Ambroise, is celebrated as the publisher of the beautiful “Louvre” editions of Virgil, Horace and Racine. The Racine, in three volumes folio, was pronounced in 1801 to be “the most perfect typographical production of all ages.” Firmin Didot (1764-1836), his brother, second son of François Ambroise, sustained the reputation of the family both as printer and type-founder. He revived (if he did not invent—a distinction which in order of time belongs to William Ged) the process of stereotyping, and coined its name, and he first used the process in his edition of Callet’s Tables of Logarithms (1795), in which he secured an accuracy till then unattainable. He published stereotyped editions of French, English and Italian classics at a very low price. He was the author of two tragedies—La Reine de Portugal and La Mort d’Annibal; and he wrote metrical translations from Virgil, Tyrtaeus and Theocritus. Ambroise Firmin Didot (1790-1876) was his eldest son. After receiving a classical education, he spent three years in Greece and in the East; and on the retirement of his father in 1827 he undertook, in conjunction with his brother Hyacinthe, the direction of the publishing business. Their greatest undertaking was a new edition of the Thesaurus Graecae linguae of Henri Estienne, under the editorial care of the brothers Dindorf and M. Hase (9 vols., 1855-1859). Among the numerous important works published by the brothers, the 200 volumes forming the Bibliothèque des auteurs grecs, Bibliothèque latine, and Bibliothèque française deserve special mention. Ambroise Firmin Didot was the first to propose (1823) a subscription in favour of the Greeks, then in insurrection against Turkish tyranny. Besides a translation of Thucydides (1833), he wrote the articles “Estienne” in the Nouvelle Biographie générale, and “Typographie” in the Ency. mod., as well as Observations sur l’orthographie française (1867), &c. In 1875 he published a very learned and elaborate monograph on Aldus Manutius. His collection of MSS., the richest in France, was said to have been worth, at the time of his death, not less than 2,000,000 francs.
DIDRON, ADOLPHE NAPOLÉON (1806-1867), French archaeologist, was born at Hautvillers, in the department of Marne, on the 13th of March 1806. At first a student of law, he began in 1830, by the advice of Victor Hugo, a study of the Christian archaeology of the middle ages. After visiting and examining the principal churches, first of Normandy, then of central and southern France, he was on his return appointed by Guizot secretary to the Historical Committee of Arts and Monuments (1835); and in the following years he delivered several courses of lectures on Christian iconography at the Bibliothèque Royale. In 1839 he visited Greece for the purpose of examining the art of the Eastern Church, both in its buildings and its manuscripts. In 1844 he originated the Annales archéologiques, a periodical devoted to his favourite subject, which he edited until his death. In 1845 he established at Paris a special archaeological library, and at the same time a manufactory of painted glass. In the same year he was admitted to the Legion of Honour. His most important work is the Iconographie chrétienne, of which, however, the first portion only, Histoire de Dieu (1843), was published. It was translated into English by E. J. Millington. Among his other works may be mentioned the Manuel d’iconographie chrétienne grecque et latine (1845), the Iconographie des chapiteaux du palais ducal de Venise (1857), and the Manuel des objets de bronze et d’orfèvrerie (1859). He died on the 13th of November 1867.