King Pygmalion of Tyre killed his sister's husband for his buried gold, and she sailed away with it after dumping sacks of sand into the sea

Justin's epitome of Pompeius Trogus says a king of Tyre named his son Pygmalion and his daughter Elissa as joint heirs, but the people gave the throne to Pygmalion, then a boy. Elissa married her uncle Acerbas, priest of Hercules, the office next to the king's. Acerbas had buried his gold in the earth for fear of the king. Pygmalion heard the rumour and murdered him. Elissa hid her hatred and asked to move into her brother's house. Pygmalion agreed, expecting the gold to come with her. She loaded his attendants onto ships, sailed out at night, and had them throw sacks of sand into the sea as if they were the treasure. Then she told them the king would torture and kill them for losing it, and they fled with her. At Cyprus a priest of Jupiter joined her for a hereditary priesthood, and she seized about eighty young women as wives for her men. In Africa she bought as much ground as an ox-hide could cover, cut the hide into strips and enclosed the hill called Byrsa. When the Libyan king Hiarbas demanded her in marriage on threat of war, she built a pyre and killed herself with a sword. Virgil names her husband Sychaeus and says his ghost showed her the treasure. Josephus, citing Menander, dates her flight to Pygmalion's seventh year. Historian Dexter Hoyos says the story "quite possibly rests on a basic historical reality." Byrsa hill stands in the ruins of Carthage.