A brief history of Carthage
Revisiting the past of the great Punic city
I have decided to start this newsletter with an article that gives a general overview of the political and military history of Punic Carthage. It is a good way to start, it will give context to many of the topics that will be discussed later, and it will allow us to better place Carthage in the larger historical context of the ancient Mediterranean, on which there is also much to talk about.
First of all, to study, understand, or talk about Carthage, it is necessary to understand, more than with many other peoples of Antiquity, the limitations of studying its past. The history of Carthage, great as it is, is one about the vanquished, imposed by the Romans and their historiographical tradition, and that describes, in essence, the problem facing historians who have a passion for the Punic city's past.
Except for the archaeological evidence, everything that the literary sources tell us about Carthage corresponds to what the Romans, and to a lesser extent the Greeks, thought and perceived about them. If someone wants to study the history of Carthage directly through the literary sources, he will find that these sources are not Carthaginian –for they do not exist– but Roman and Greek. Understanding how the Carthaginians understood their own history is perhaps the greatest challenge facing historians today. All as a consequence of the destruction of Carthage and its vast literary production, handed over by the Senate of Rome to the Numidian kings, under whose rule it was eventually fragmented and lost over time.
But enough of these historical laments. We are now going to talk about the history of this great city of Antiquity, often ignored, often blurred beyond recognition by ignorance and the passage of time: Carthage, the Tyrian colony founded in the 9th century BC. in North Africa, in what is now Tunisia. The myth that narrates these events is quite popular. Elissa, the wife of an important priest of the Phoenician city of Tyre (in present-day Lebanon), escaped from Tyre with a retinue of nobles after her husband was murdered by the king of the city. The journey would have taken her to the North African coast, which was then dominated by Libyan tribes. There Elissa and her entourage founded the city on a high hill (Byrsa) on the tip of an isthmus that juts eastward into the sea. This is the birth of Qart-Hadasht, ‘new city’ in Phoenician, or as we know it from the Latin derivation, Carthage.
Modern historiography has doubts about the veracity of this myth, but it may have some basis in reality. I will return to this subject in a separate article, as the discussions that have taken place in recent years are undoubtedly very interesting. However, from an archaeological point of view, it is already an established fact that by the end of the 9th century B.C. the Byrsa Hill and its surroundings already showed evidence of human occupation. The official date for the foundation of Carthage has been accepted as 813 BC. From there we have a city built on a hill overlooking the sea, fortified and small, which was to make annual offerings to the Temple of Melkart in Tyre (its mother city) and to pay taxes to the Libyan tribes that allowed them to settle on the shores of Africa. For the time being, and until the 6th century BC, Carthage was arguably the most powerful Phoenician factory in the western Mediterranean, but it still maintained ties of dependence with Tyre, its founder.
But from then on things began to change. The city, governed from its beginnings by a monarchy, began a rapid expansion first aimed at imposing itself as the hegemonic power in the other Phoenician colonies of the western Mediterranean (such as Utica and Lemta in Africa, Gadir in Spain and Panormo and Motia in Sicily), thus consolidating its trade routes. It would soon stop paying the historic annual taxes to the Libyan tribes of Africa in order to bring them under its power, and would stop sending offerings to the temple of Melkart in Tyre, thus disintegrating its last political ties with its founding city. This period coincided with the appearance of the Suffete, the highest figure in the Carthaginian political system, which consisted of two officials who gathered supreme powers before a senate, the Adirim, on an annual basis, so that it can be said that in fact, throughout the 6th century BC, the city underwent a political transformation from a monarchy to a republic.
By the 5th century BC Carthage was already in a position to assume extra-maritime ambitions, and began to increase its military presence in other Phoenician colonies, many of which it repopulated with settlers of its own to ensure the exclusivity of its trade routes. In this context there were clashes with the Greeks of Massilia, whom they were unable to prevent from founding their colony on the coasts of Gaul (France), and with the Phocaean Greeks of Alalia, whom they ended up expelling from Corsica to hand the island over to the Etruscans.
It was at this time that the first incursions of Carthage into Sicily were recorded. Colonising cities such as Panormo or Lilibeo, the city laid the foundations for its presence in the west of the island for nearly three hundred years, which led to constant clashes with the Greek colonies in the area, mainly with Syracuse.
In Carthage itself, these were the times of the Magonides, an important family that rose to prominence at the end of the 6th century BC with Magon I, and would dominate the political scene throughout the next century. It is the grandson of this Magon I, Hamilcar (not to be confused with Hannibal's father), who will initiate the first of many wars in Sicily in 480 BC to consolidate Carthaginian rule on the island.
The series of Sicilian wars in which Carthage was involved did not end until 241 BC, when it was forced by Rome to evacuate the island for good. By then, the power of the Magonides was already in the past (the last of them, Hymilchon, was killed in 397-396 BC after a disastrous campaign in Sicily), and new factions in the Adirim (senate) were bidding for internal control of the city. Soon it would be the time of the famous Barca clan, with Hamilcar and then his son Hannibal at its head.
Trying to maintain control of its dominions and consolidate its influence in eastern Sicily after the invasion of Pyrrhus (278-276 BC), Carthage came into conflict with Rome in 264 BC for control of the island. From then on, the city entered the most famous period of its history, at least for us present-day readers: the time of the Punic Wars.
Undoubtedly, the name of these conflicts that Carthage had with Rome reflects the nature of the sources we historians work with; it is called the Punic Wars because that is what the Romans called the Carthaginians' people, Punics (Phoenicians), and that is an indication that the narrative of history we have access to was constructed from a Roman perspective.
The First Punic War lasted twenty-three years (264-241 BC), and resulted in defeat by Rome and the final expulsion from Sicily, and later Corsica and Sardinia. This conflict was followed by the Second Punic War (218-201 BC), where despite Hannibal's incredible campaign in Italy and his legendary winter crossing of the Alps, Carthage was again defeated by Rome. Finally, the Third Punic War (149-146 BC) led to the final defeat and destruction of the city at the hands of the Romans. It could be said that the history of the city ends there, but the reality is somewhat more complex than that.
Carthage was re-founded in 44 BC by Julius Caesar, and slowly began to grow to become one of the largest and most important cities in the Roman Empire. Interestingly, the inhabitants of the city, or Roman Carthaginians, spoke Punic and worshipped the Carthaginian gods Baal Hamon and Tanit, the same language and the same gods of the city that the Romans went to such great lengths to destroy, but that's another story.
For those who want to study the rich history of Carthage in depth, I have good news as there is a wealth of literature available. I personally recommend two works that I consider key: Carthage, by archaeologist Serge Lancel (1994), and Carthage. A Biography, by historian Dexter Hoyos (2021). I believe they are the most detailed and complete works available on the history of the Punic city.
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