It appears that two parties already existed in the state, one aristocratic, and the other popular.[14117] Mattan, fearing the ascendancy of the popular party, married his daughter, Elisa, whom he intended for his successor, to her uncle and his own brother, Sicharbas, who was High Priest of Melkarth, and therefore possessed of considerable authority in his own person.
Having effected this marriage, and nominated Elisa to succeed him, Mattan died at the early age of thirty-two, after a reign of only nine years.[14118] Besides his daughter, he had left behind him a son, Pygmalion, who, at his decease, was but eight or nine years old.

This child the democratic party contrived to get under their influence, proclaimed him king, young as he was, and placed him upon the throne.
Elisa and her husband retired into private life, and lived in peace for seven years, but Pygmalion, being then grown to manhood, was not content to leave them any longer unmolested.

He murdered Sicharbas, and endeavoured to seize his riches.

But the ex-Queen contrived to frustrate his design, and having possessed herself of a fleet of ships, and taken on board the greater number of the nobles, sailed away, with her husband's wealth untouched, to Cyprus first, and then to Africa.[14119] Here, by agreement with the inhabitants, a site was obtained, and the famous settlement founded, which became known to the Greeks as "Karchedon," and to the Romans as "Carthago," or Carthage.

Josephus places this event in the hundred and forty-fourth year after the building of the Temple of Solomon,[14120] or about B.C.860.