Acerbas

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Promptuarii Iconum Insigniorum
(1553)

Acerbas was a

Elissa, the daughter of king Mattan I, and sister of Pygmalion. He was possessed of considerable wealth, which, knowing the avarice of Pygmalion, who had succeeded his father, he concealed in the earth. But Pygmalion, who heard of these hidden treasures, had Acerbas murdered, in hopes that through his sister he might obtain possession of them. But the prudence of Elissa saved the treasures, and she emigrated from Phoenicia.[1] They landed and settled in North Africa, founding the city of Carthage
. The name Acerbas (Sicharbas, Zacherbas) can be equated with the name
Zikarbaal, king of Byblos mentioned in the Egyptian Tale of Wenamon
.

In this account Acerbas is the same person as Sychaeus, and Elissa the same as

Servius remarks, that Virgil here, as in other cases, changed a foreign name into one more convenient to him, and that the real name of Sychaeus was Sycharbas, which seems to be identical with Acerbas.[3]

References

Footnotes

Other sources

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domainSmith, William, ed. (1870). "Acerbas". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.