THE RISE & FALL OF CARTHAGE Visit Tunisia Tour Tunisia Travel to Tunisia

Carthage (in Phoenician , Kart-Hadasht; in Latin , Carthago) , now a northern suburb of Tunis , was a great trading city that has risen in the 6th century BC and dominated the Western Mediterranean .

Phoenicians seeking trading posts along the maritime route between their own city of Tyre (now in southern Lebanon) and the silver mines of southern Spain , were drawn to the Tunisian coast . The first place they settle in Tunisia was about 1101 BC , in Utica which is located about 35krn northwest of Tunis . Other Phoenician ports located along the North African coast also included Hadrumetum (Sousse) , Hippo Diarrhytus (Bizerte) and Thrabaka (Tabarka) .

The city of Carthage was founded in 814 BC by the Phoenician queen Elissa (Dido) , its foundation has an elaborate myth connected with it and a version of that myth appears in Virgil's epic poem The Aeneid . From that time , Carthage started to give rise to a more permanent Phoenician presence in Tunisia . It went from strength to strength , in the time that Tyre itself was suffering at the hands of the Assyrians in the 7th and 6th centuries BC . It then became the great metropolis of the Phoenician world , enjoying wealth coming from trading craft and

protected by a powerful navy . By the end of the 6th century BC , Carthage reached its full power and became the prominent one in the western Mediterranean , gaining power over the North African coast from Tripolitania (western Libya) to the Atlantic , with colonies in the Balearic Islands , Corsica , Malta , Sardinia and Sicily .

In the 5th and 4th centuries BC , Carthage tried to expand its land empire in Africa , gaining out territory - similar in extent to modern-day Tunisia - that stretched from Tabarka in the northwest to Sfax in the southeast , including also the fertile lands of the Cap Bon Peninsula and the Medjerda Valley which were large providers of exportable agriculture .

Because Carthage had acquired regional primacy , it was evident that it will clash with the other great powers of the Mediterranean: first Greece , and then Rome . There were numerous wars broke out in 310 BC with the Greeks over Sicily , which is located about 150km . The Carthaginians finally gained control of the island in the middle of the 3rd century BC . However , at that time the clash with the Roman empire was about to manifest itself with the first of the three

Punic Wars that would continue between the two powers for the next 100 years . Rome waged the first war in 263 BC with a campaign to win control of Sicily . The Roman army gained successes on land and the powerful Carthage's navy failed to defend the city against the attack . Another sharp defeat for the Carthaginians took place in 242 BC , when the Roman fledgling navy succeeded in destroying the Carthaginian fleet off Trapani (eastern Sicily) . Carthage , apparently became much weaker now , was forced to accept Roman terms and abandon Sicily; and in 238 BC it gave up Sardinia and Corsica , too . Furthermore , internal troubles inside Carthage began to rise as unpaid mercenaries revolted and caused a bitter conflict that was characterized by brutality and savagery . This ruthless conflict was mentioned in Gustave Flaubert's over-the-top novel Salammbo (1862) .

Carthage was defeated again in the Battle of Zama in 202 BC and as a consequence it was forced to relinquish further overseas territories , among which were the losing of much of its African territory to the Numidian king Massinissa , who cavalry fought for the Romans alongside Scipio at Zama .

In spite of all that , Carthage succeeded again in regaining its former fame as a commercial center for the next 50 years . This resurgence

of the city however caused increasing unease in Rome and urged her to finally launched the Third Punic War with the intention of settling the matter once and for all . In 149 BC , the Roman army landed at Utica and laid siege to Carthage for three years . The city which stood the siege for three years finally fall in 146 BC . When the Romans entered the city , they showed no mercy . They destroyed Carthage completely then ceremonially cursed it , its agricultural lands symbolically sown with salt - to ensure that they would remain forever barren , while the survivors were sold into slavery .

In spite of their being great merchants , the Carthaginians were ruthless rulers who had oppressed and heavily taxed the indigenous Berber peoples around them . Although the Carthaginians have taught Berbers advanced agriculture , many of the Berbers were forced to flee into the desert and mountain hinterland .