1. Princess Dido and the Ox Skin

2. According to Virgil’s Aeneid, Princess Dido was a Phoenician princess from the city of Tyre in modern-day Lebanon.

3. When her brother the King murdered her husband, Dido and her followers set sail to Northern Africa and the city of Carthage.
She asked the locals if she could purchase a small parcel of land, and was told she could purchase only as much land as she could encompass with the skin of an ox.

4. The clever princess cut the ox skin into thin strips and set them end-to-end, encircling a large hill! Byrsa (“the hide”) Hill still exists today.

5. Oxen

6. Reference
Illuminations, resources for teaching maths retrieved from