History of Punic era Tunisia

Carthage was founded in the 9th century BC on the coast of North Africa, in what is now Tunisia. It developed into a significant trading empire throughout the Mediterranean, and was seen as home to a wealthy and brilliant civilization. After a long conflict with the emerging civilisation of Ancient Rome, known as the Punic Wars, during which advantage shifted from one side to the other and Hannibal conducted a campaign in Italy after first crossing the Alps, Rome finally destroyed Carthage in 146 B.C. A Roman Carthage was established on the ruins of the first.

The city started as one of a number of Phoenician settlements in the western Mediterranean that were created to facilitate trade from the city of Tyre on the coast of what is now Lebanon. Most Phoenician cities had fewer than 1,000 inhabitants, but Carthage and a few others developed into large, self-sustaining, independent towns. Ancient sources concur that Carthage had become perhaps the wealthiest city in the world via its trade and commerce. The founding of Carthage is variously given in ancient sources as somewhere between 1215 BC and 1234 BC. Modern sources feel the city was founded sometime between 846 and 813 BC. According to tradition, the city was founded by Queen Dido. The initial city 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 Africa, aided the early settlement in her dealings. 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 Africa during 800 - 700 BC. When the Phoenician trade monopoly was challenged by Etruscans and Greeks in the west and their political and economic independence by successive empires in the east, Phoenician influence from the mainland decreased in the west and Punic Carthage ultimately emerged at the head of a commercial empire.

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