Carthaginian Empire

Carthage was a Phoenician city-state on the North African coast (in modern Tunisia) that grew into the dominant commercial and naval power of the western Mediterranean.

Founded by settlers from Tyre around 814 BCE according to tradition, the city became effectively independent in the seventh century BCE as its Phoenician homeland fell under Assyrian and later Babylonian and Persian control. Leveraging its superb harbour and powerful navy, Carthage built a far-flung network of colonies, trading posts, and vassal territories spanning the North African coast, southern Iberia, Sardinia, western Sicily, and the Balearic Islands, dominating Mediterranean commerce in metals, textiles, and agricultural goods. Its government was an oligarchic republic led by elected magistrates called suffetes and a powerful council of elders, an arrangement admired by some Greek and Roman observers. Carthaginian religion, language, and culture (known as Punic) derived from its Phoenician roots. For centuries Carthage clashed with the Greeks of Sicily, but its defining struggle was with the rising Roman Republic in the three Punic Wars. The First Punic War (264–241 BCE) cost Carthage Sicily; the Second (218–201 BCE) saw the brilliant general Hannibal famously cross the Alps with war elephants and inflict devastating defeats on Rome at Cannae and elsewhere, yet ultimately end in defeat at Zama. Reduced to a minor power, Carthage was finally destroyed in the Third Punic War (149–146 BCE), when Rome besieged and razed the city, enslaved its survivors, and annexed its territory. The fall of Carthage left Rome the unchallenged master of the western Mediterranean.

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