History of Carthage
The city of Carthage was founded in the 9th century BC on the coast of Northwest Africa, in what is now Tunisia, as one of a number of Phoenician settlements in the western Mediterranean created to facilitate trade from the city of Tyre on the coast of what is now Lebanon. The name of both the city and the wider republic that grew out of it, Carthage developed into a significant trading empire throughout the Mediterranean. The date from which Carthage can be counted as an independent power cannot exactly be determined, and probably nothing distinguished Carthage from the other Phoenician colonies in Northwest Africa and the Mediterranean during 800–700 BC. By the end of the 7th century BC, Carthage was becoming one of the leading commercial centres of the West Mediterranean region. After a long conflict with the emerging Roman Republic, known as the Punic Wars, Rome finally destroyed Carthage in 146 BC. A Roman Carthage was established on the ruins of the first. Roman Carthage was eventually destroyed—its walls torn down, its water supply cut off, and its harbours made unusable—following its conquest by Arab invaders at the close of the 7th century. It was replaced by Tunis as the major regional centre, which has spread to include the ancient site of Carthage in a modern suburb.
Beginning
Carthage was one of a number of Phoenician settlements in the western Mediterranean that were created to facilitate trade from the cities of Sidon, Tyre and others from Phoenicia, which was situated on the coast of what is now Lebanon. In the 10th century BC, the eastern Mediterranean shore was inhabited by various Semitic populations, who had built up flourishing civilizations. The people inhabiting what is now Lebanon were referred to as Phoenicians by the Greeks.The Phoenician cities were highly dependent on both land- and seaborne trade and their cities included a number of major ports in the area. In order to provide a resting place for their merchant fleets, to maintain a Phoenician monopoly on an area's natural resource, or to conduct trade on its own, the Phoenicians established numerous colonial cities along the coasts of the Mediterranean, stretching from Iberia to the Black Sea. They were stimulated to found their cities by a need for revitalizing trade in order to pay the tribute extracted from Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos by the succession of empires that ruled them and later by fear of complete Greek colonization of that part of the Mediterranean suitable for commerce. The initial Phoenician colonization took place during a time when other neighboring kingdoms were suffering from a "Dark Age", perhaps after the activities of the Sea Peoples. The city of Carthage initially covered the area around a hill called Byrsa, paid an annual tribute to the nearby Libyan tribes, and may have been ruled by a governor from Tyre, whom the Greeks identified as "king". Utica, then the leading Phoenician city in Northwest Africa, aided the early settlement in her dealings.
The Phoenicians' leading city was Tyre, which established a number of trading posts around the Mediterranean. Ultimately Phoenicians established 300 colonies in Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, Iberia, and to a much lesser extent, on the arid coast of Libya. The Phoenicians lacked the population or necessity to establish self-sustaining cities abroad, and most cities had fewer than 1,000 inhabitants, but Carthage and a few other cities later developed into large, self-sustaining, independent cities. The Phoenicians controlled Cyprus, Sardinia, Corsica, Malta and the Balearic Islands, as well as obtaining minor possessions in Crete and Sicily; the latter settlements were in perpetual conflict with the Greeks. The Phoenicians managed to control Sicily for a limited time, but Phoenician control did not extend inland and was limited to the coast only.
The first colonies were made on the two paths to Iberia's mineral wealth—along the African coast and via Sicily, Sardinia and the Balearic Islands. The center of the Phoenician world was Tyre, serving as an economic and political hub. The power of this city waned following numerous sieges and its eventual destruction by Alexander the Great, and the role as leader passed to Sidon, and eventually to Carthage. Each colony paid tribute to either Tyre or Sidon, but neither mother city had actual control of the colonies. This changed with the rise of Carthage since the Carthaginians appointed their own magistrates to rule the towns and Carthage retained much direct control over the colonies. This policy resulted in a number of Iberian towns siding with the Romans during the Punic Wars.
Ancient sources concur that Carthage had become perhaps the wealthiest city in the world via its trade and commerce, yet few remains of its riches exist. This is due to the fact that most of it was short-lived materials—textiles, unworked metal, foodstuffs, and slaves; its trade in fabricated goods was only a part of its wares. There can be no doubt that the most fruitful trade was that acquired from the Phoenicians in the western Mediterranean, in which tin, silver, gold, and iron were gained in return for consumer goods. Like their Phoenician predecessors the Carthaginians produced and exported the very valuable Tyrian purple dye that was extracted from shellfish. The Phoenician colony of Mogador on the northwestern coast of Africa was a center of Tyrian dye production.
Dido and the foundation of Carthage
Carthage was founded by Phoenicians coming from the Levant. The city's name in Phoenician language means "New City". There is a tradition in some ancient sources, such as Philistos of Syracuse, for an "early" foundation date of around 1215 BC – that is before the fall of Troy in 1180 BC; however, Timaeus of Taormina, a Greek historian from Sicily c. 300 BC, gives the foundation date of Carthage as thirty-eight years before the first Olympiad; this "late" foundation date of 814 BC is the one generally accepted by modern historians. As such, Utica predates Carthage. The name Utica is derived from a Punic stem 'dtāq, meaning "to be old", which lends some support to this chronology, for Carthage signifies "new city". The fleets of the King Hiram of Tyre, as recounted in the Bible, perhaps joined at times by ships assigned to Solomon, would date to the 10th century. "For the king had a fleet of ships of Tarshish at sea with the fleet of Hiram." The Punic port city of Utica was originally situated at the mouth of the fertile Wadi Majardah, at a point along the coast about 30 kilometres north of Carthage. "Utica is named besides Carthage in the second treaty with Rome, and... appears again as nominally equal with Carthage in the treaty between Hannibal and Philip of Macedon. She does not appear in the first treaty with Rome, which perhaps means she was fully independent and not even bound in the Carthage-Rome alliance." Of course, eventually Utica was surpassed by Carthage.Tyre, the major maritime city-state of Phoenicia and prime mover in the Phoenician mercantile expansion into the western Mediterranean, first settled Carthage. Probably Carthage started as one of Tyre's permanent stations en route to its very profitable, ongoing trade in metals with southern Hispania. Such stations were often established by Tyre at intervals of about 30 to 50 kilometres along the African coast. Carthage would grow to out-rival all other Phoenician settlements.
Legends alive in the city for centuries assigned its foundation in 814 BC to a queen of Tyre, Elissa, also called Dido. Dido's great aunt must have been Jezebel, who was also the daughter of a King of Tyre, in this case Ithobaal ; Jezebel became wife to King Ahab of Israel, according to the Hebrew Books of Kings.
Dido's story is told by the Roman historian Pompeius Trogus, a near contemporary of Virgil. Trogus describes a sinister web of court intrigue in which the new king Pygmalion slays the chief priest Acharbas, which causes the Queen Elissa along with some nobles to flee the city of Tyre westward in a fleet of ships carrying royal gold. At Cyprus, four score temple maidens were taken aboard the ships. Then her fleet continues on, landing in Northwest Africa to found Carthage. Shortly after becoming established, according to Trogus, it is said that Hiarbus, a local Mauritani tribal chief, sought to marry the newly arrived queen. Instead, in order to honour her murdered husband the priest, Dido took her own life by the sword, publicly casting herself into a ceremonial fire. Thereafter she was celebrated as a goddess at Carthage.
The Roman poet Virgil presents Dido as a tragic heroine in his epic poem the Aeneid, whose hero Aeneas travels from Troy, to Carthage, to Rome. The work contains inventive scenes, loosely based on the legendary history of Carthage, e.g., referring to the then well-known story how the Phoenician Queen cunningly acquired the citadel of the Byrsa. In Virgil's epic, the god Jupiter requires the hero Aeneas to leave his beloved Dido, who then commits suicide and burns in a funeral pyre. This episode employs not only the history or legends narrated by Trogus, but perhaps also subsequent mythical and cult-based elements, as Dido would become assimilated to the Punic or Berber goddess Tanit. Each autumn a pyre was built outside the old city of Carthage; into it the goddess was thought to throw herself in self-immolation for the sake of the dead vegetation god Adonis–Eshmun.
"Nothing of historical value can be derived from the foundation legends transmitted to us in various versions by Greek and Roman authors", comments professor Warmington. Yet from such legends the modern reader may form some understanding of how the ancient people of Carthage spoke to each other about their city's beginnings, i.e., an aspect of their collective self-image, or perhaps even infer some of the subtlety in the cultural context of the accepted tradition, if not the personality of the characters nor the gist of the events themselves.
The 6th century Hebrew prophet Ezekiel in a lamentation nonetheless sings the praises of the Phoenicians, specifically of the cities of Tyre and Sidon. "Tyre, who dwells at the entrance to the sea, merchant of many peoples on many coastlands.... ... Tarshish trafficked with you because of your great wealth of every kind; silver, iron, tin, and lead they exchanged for your wares." Homer describes such a Phoenician ship in the Odyssey.
Modern consensus locates this ancient, mineral-rich region in the south of Hispania, possibly linked to Tartessos, a native city of the Iberians. Here mining was already underway, and early on the Phoenicians founded the city of Gadir . Bronze then was a highly useful and popular material, made from copper and tin. Tin being scarce though in high demand, its supply became very profitable. Yet Hispania was even more rich in silver. Originally Carthage was probably a stop on the way between Tyre and the region of Gadir, a stop where sailors might beach their boats and resupply with food and water. Eventually, local trade would begin, and huts built; later more permanent homes and warehouses constructed, then fortified, perhaps also a shrine. All would change and transform on the day when a Queen of Tyre arrived with a fleet of ships, carrying nobility and well-connected merchants, and royal treasure.
Carthage was founded by Phoenician settlers from the city of Tyre, who brought with them the city-god Melqart. Philistos of Syracuse dates the founding of Carthage to c 1215 BC, while the Roman historian Appian dates the founding 50 years prior to the Trojan War. The Roman poet Virgil imagines that the city's founding coincides with the end of the Trojan War. However, it is most likely that the city was founded sometime between 846 and 813 BC.