In the beginning all the Phoenecian towns maintained allegiance to Tyre. Carthage was unusual in that it was meant from the beginning to be a consideral settlement. Most Phoenician settlements were small trading posts for which the Phoenicians usually paid rent to the native population of the area. And, in fact, the Phoenicians paid rent for Carthage until the middle of the sixth century, B.C.

Phoenician cities in the Middle East suffered severe reversals during the 7th century BC and submitted to Persian domination during the 6th (they supplied the navy that Xerxes used against the Greeks). During these centuries Carthage grew to be an extremely important city-state in its own right, and by the 5th century, B.C., was independent of any control by Tyre.

In the early sixth century Tyre became seriously weakened after a long Babylonian siege. At the same time the Phoenicians settlers came into conflict with the Greeks, and the settlements fell under the leadership of Carthage in the absence of help from distant Tyre. How exactly this happened is not clear, but from this time on the term Carthaginian can be used to refer not simply to the inhabitants of that city specifically but to the inhabitants of all the Phoenician settlements in the western Mediterranean.


The settlers of Carthage and their descendents freely intermarried with prominent members of the native population of their locale (and of colonies Carthage itself established along the southern Mediterranean coast in N. Africa). The people and their culture came to be called "Punic." The Roman word "poenicus," a transliteration of the Greek word "phoinikos" means "red," and may refer to the skin color of the Phoenicians of the middle east. Thus, in Polybius and many Roman authors, you will see these people referred to as "Punic," "Carthaginian" or "Phoenician."

Punic policy towards the poorer nomadic tribes of the region (called Libyans, or Numidians (nomads), by the Greeks, they were the ancestors of the modern Berber people) was considerably harsher, however, and they routinely faced the risk of rebellion.

By the subjugation of the Libyan tribes and by the annexation of older Phoenician colonies, Carthage in the 6th century BC controlled the entire North African coast from the Atlantic Ocean to the western border of Egypt, as well as Sardinia, Malta, the Balearic Islands, and part of Sicily.

Up until this time Carthaginians had been explorers and traders, plying the western Mediterranean and even the Atlantic and exchanging textiles, Cornish tin and west African gold and ivory. One of Carthage's greatest explorers was Hanno the Navigator. His expeditionary voyage -probably in the early 5th c BC- along the Atlantic coast of North Africa and the African west coast took him at least as far as Senegal. Upon his return to Carthage, he erected a stone tablet at the temple to the god Baal; here he described his voyage in the Punic language. The account has been translated into Greek and is known as the Periplus of Hanno.

The maritime power of the Carthaginians enabled them to extend their settlements and conquests, forming a scattered empire devoted to commerce. Among the commercial enterprises were the mining of silver and lead; the manufacture of beds and bedding; a lumber industry in the Atlas Mountains; the production of simple, cheap pottery, jewelry, and glassware for trade; and the export of wild animals from African jungles, of fruits and nuts, and of ivory and gold.

Carthage produced little art. Most of the work of the Carthaginians was imitative of Egyptian, Greek, and Phoenician originals. In literature only a few technical works appeared. Thus, little is known of the everyday life of Carthage, its government, or its language.

During the fourth and third centuries, Carthage enthusiastically adopted and adapted artistic and architectural motifs of Egyptian and Hellenic culture, but never abandoned their own religious, artistic and social customs. The cultural life of the cities of this empire, accordingly, was a fascinating mix of native, immigrant and imported influences. Virtually no literary works survive from Carthage, although we know of at least one important agricultural treatise by a Carthaginian named Mago that profoundly influenced Roman thinking about agricultural science. It is not perhaps coincidental that this is the only work that survives at least by reputation, for the Carthaginians performed agricultural marvels in North Africa, expanding the region's cultivated land to far greater inland areas than has ever been achieved since their sway.

Carthage dominated the western Mediterranean by establishing colonies in Sicily, Sardinia, and Spain (or by coming to dominate other settlements that had been established in the western Mediterranean by Phoenician cities in the 7th and 6th centuries B.C.), and forbidding traders from any other city-state to travel or trade in the region. This gave them unchallenged access to the metal, agricultural and personel resources of the entire region and contributed (as did their agricultural success in North Africa) to their extraordinary growth and wealth. At the time of the First Punic War, Carthage controled an area of about 28, 000 square miles (in N. Africa) and a population of 3 to 4 million people.

In the mid sixth century the Carthaginians co-operated with the Etruscans to drive out the Greeks from Corsica.

In 550 BC the Phoenicians came into conflict with the Greeks, both prosperous and expanding cultures, over colonies in western Sicily.

In 540 BC, the Carthaginians prevented a Greek attempt to land in Corsica.

However, a Carthaginian campaign to conquer all of Sicily was blocked by the Greek tyrants Gelon and Theron at Himera in 480 BC. The scale of the defeat was so vast that the Carthaginian monarch was overthrown and a republic formed. During this period, the Rome was initially allied with Carthage against the Greeks, who were also colonizing Southern Italy. Treaties of cooperation were signed in 508 BC and 450 BC between Rome and Carthage. Gradually, however, Carthaginian successes prompted increasing Roman anxiety that eventually lead to confict.

In 410 BC, the Sicilian city of Segesta asked for Carthaginian aid against the Greek city of Selinius. In 408 BC, the general Hannibal (not the famous Hannibal) launched a Carthaginian blitzkreig that resulted in the destruction of the Greek cities of Selinius, Agrigento, and Himera, although the Carthaginians failed to reduce the principle Greek city of Syracuse. A treaty was negotiated, but Dionysius of Syracusa broke it shortly thereafter by sacking the Punic city of Moyta, prompting another hundred years of large and small scale skirmishes between the Greeks and the Punics on Sicily and in southern Italy.

The next three hundred years were largely spent in a see-saw struggle between the Carthaginians and Greeks for control of Sicily. Each side came close several times to expelling the other but never succeeded. The final attempt before Roman involvement came at the time of Pyrrhus's involvement in southern Italy.

The Carthaginians hitherto had never paid tribute, and they had never suffered a serious reverse. Alcibiades talked much of invading them when he had done with Sicily, and the young men of his set were at one time always drawing plans of Carthage in the dust of the market-place at Athens; but the Sicilian expedition failed. The affection of the Tyrians preserved them from Cambyses. Alexander opportunely died.

Pyrrhus in Sicily began to collect ships to sail across, but he who tried to take up Italy with one hand and Carthage with the other, and who also excited the enmity of the Sicilian Greeks, was not a very dangerous foe.

Agathocles of Syracuse invaded Africa, but it was the action of a desperate and defeated man and bore no result.

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