Ancient Carthage

Ancient Carthage (Punic: 𐤒𐤓𐤕𐤟𐤇𐤃𐤔𐤕, lit. 'New City') was an ancient Semitic civilisation based in North Africa. Initially a settlement in present-day Tunisia, it later became a city-state and then an empire. Founded by the Phoenicians in the ninth century BC, Carthage reached its height in the fourth century BC as one of the largest metropolises in the world. It was the centre of the Carthaginian Empire, a major power led by the Punic people who dominated the ancient western and central Mediterranean Sea. Following the Punic Wars, Carthage was destroyed by the Romans in 146 BC, who later rebuilt the city lavishly.

Quotes

• Carthago delenda est
• Carthage must be destroyed

• • Plutarch, Life of Cato the Elder, 27

• Oh, moonlit night of Africa, and orchard by those wild seabanks where once Dido stood ; oh, laughter of boys among the shaken leaves, and sound of falling fruit; how do you live alone out of so many nights that no man remembers? For Carthage is destroyed, indeed, and forsaken of the sea, yet that one hour of summer is to be unforgotten while man has memory of the story of his past.
  • Andrew Lang, Adventures Among Books, Chapter VIII: The Confessions of Saint Augustine

• It is useless to discuss what might have been the result if Carthage had won the war and become the outstanding world power instead of Rome. In truth Carthage could never have become a world power. The independent peoples of Italy could never have been held together for even a generation under the Oriental theory of government by exploitation that Carthage represented.
  • Tenney Frank, A History of Rome, 1923, chapter VI page 101