Photos from Ancient Carthage (814BC-146BC)
Ancient Carthage was a city state in the time of antiquity that exists in present day Tunis, Tunisia in North Africa. It was founded around the year 814BC by Phoenician (Punic) settlers who emanated from the Levant, in modern day Lebanon, Syria & Israel. The Phoenicians were a civilization that spoke a Semitic language & engaged in a society that primarily was interested in trade & commerce throughout the Mediterranean Sea.
The Phoenicians settled in trade colonies throughout the Mediterranean basin in not only their West Asian homeland but Europe & North Africa all the way to modern day Spain & Morocco. Their best-known trade colony was Carthage or “Qart-hadast” which meant “New City” in their language. This was strategically located where modern Tunis sits. It was located on a strip of land that allowed shelter from storms on the North African coast & was well placed near the center of the Mediterranean Sea & its trade routes crisscrossing between the east & west. The settlers who established Carthage were Phoenicians colonists from the city of Tyre in modern Lebanon, one of the three major city-states of Phoenicia alongside Sidon & Byblos.
These Phoenician colonists reached Tunisia around 814 BC & like their other settlements in Libya & elsewhere they had to deal with the native populations, in this case the Berber or Amazigh peoples who inhabited North Africa from Morocco to Libya. Originally a daughter city under the rule from Tyre, they gained autonomy when Tyre & the rest of Phoenicia fell under the control of the Neo-Assyrian Empire around 650 BC. From that point on Carthage became not only an independent city-state but established a mostly sea-trade based empire or thalassocracy. It became a flourishing metropolis & dominated the Western Mediterranean for centuries.
Carthage was a monarchy until about 480 BC before becoming a republic & their sea-based commercial empire presaged the later Italian sea-based republics of Venice & Genoa over a thousand years later. Their complex system of governance, language (Punic or Western Phoenician dialect), religion & other cultural aspects are still only partially understood in the modern era due to biased contemporary foreign sources & little surviving local record.
At their peak they controlled North Africa’s coast from Libya in the east to Morocco in the west. Much of Spain, the Balearic Islands, Malta, half of Sicily, all of Sardinia & Corsica. They fought wars with the Berbers who lived inland in North Africa along with the Greek city-states that settled in Sicily & southern Italy & likewise engaged in trade with these peoples. The Phoenician settlers (Carthaginians) were often not numerous enough to make up their whole military strength. Though the Phoenicians dominated their navy while their land-based military consisted of mercenaries from the Berbers of North Africa, Greek hoplites, Sardinians, Italo-Sicilians, Corsicans & the Celts & Iberians of Spain and the Balearic Islands to complement their own elite Phoenician infantry, the Sacred Band of Carthage.
Eventually over the course of the three Punic Wars with the emerging Roman Republic, Carthage lost its power & prestige. Though it produced several military leaders of tactical & strategic renowned, the most famous being Hannibal Barca (247BC-181BC) who crossed the Alps & invaded Italy from the north inflicting several defeats on the Roman army on their native Italian soil but he was never able to take Rome itself. Eventually attrition & the threat of a Roman counterattack against Carthage itself forced Hannibal to leave for his North African home. He was eventually defeated by the Romans & finally in the Third & final Punic War, Rome destroyed ancient Carthage in 146 BC, it is said they tilled the surrounding fields in salt so that no new crops could grow & the threat of Carthage would never rise again. The Romans eventually rebuilt Carthage & included the city as their own within the Africa province of their empire. It flourished again as a center of Roman trade but eventually fell to Germanic invaders such as the Vandals before being retaken by the Byzantine Empire in the 6th Century AD before falling again to the Arab Muslim invaders in the 7th century as Islam spread across North Africa. Medieval Carthage continued as a residential town but eventually the modern city of Tunis began encircling its original Punic & later Roman ruins...