The Phoenicians were traders noted for their purple dye made from the murex snail. The name 'Phoenicia' is Greek, probably meaning 'dealer in purple', and is used for the northern part of Canaan on the east coast of the Mediterranean. They appear to have had contacts as far afield as the British Isles, which were a source of tin, and may have circumnavigated Africa over 2000 years before the Portuguese. Tyre, Sidon and Byblos were essentially city states which founded their own colonies with hereditary kings around the Mediterranean. Although they had their own alphabet of 22 letters from around BC 1000, (later adopted by the Greeks) the Phoenicians left few inscriptions so relatively little is known about them. Their empire flourished from around 1200 BC until Alexander the Great captured Tyre in 332 BC.

North Africa (with the exception of Cyrenaica) entered the mainstream of Mediterranean history with the arrival in the 1st millennium BC of Phoenician traders, mainly from Tyre and Sidon in modern Lebanon. The Phoenicians were not looking for land to settle but for anchorages and staging points on the trade route from Phoenicia to Spain, a source of silver and tin. Points on an alternative route by way of Sicily, Sardinia, and the Balearic Islands also were occupied. The Phoenicians lacked the manpower and the need to found large colonies as the Greeks did, and few of their settlements grew to any size. The sites chosen were generally offshore islands or easily defensible promontories with sheltered beaches on which ships could be drawn up. Carthage (from the Phoenician Kart-Hadasht, New City), destined to be the largest Phoenician colony and in the end an imperial power, conformed to the pattern.

Tradition dated the foundation of Gades (modern C�diz; the earliest known Phoenician trading post in Spain) to 1110 BC, Utica (Utique) to 1101 BC, and Carthage to 814 BC. The dates appear legendary, and no Phoenician object earlier than the 8th century BC has yet been found in the west. At Carthage some Greek objects have been found, datable to about 750 or slightly later, which comes within two generations of the traditional date. Little can be learned from the romantic legends about the arrival of the Phoenicians at Carthage transmitted by Greco-Roman sources. Though individual voyages doubtless took place earlier, the establishment of permanent posts is unlikely to have taken place before 800 BC, antedating the parallel movement of Greeks to Sicily and southern Italy.

Material evidence of Phoenician occupation in the 8th century BC comes from Utica, and of the 7th or 6th century BC from Hadrumetum (Susah, Sousse), Tipasa (east of Cherchell), Siga (Rachgoun), Lixus, and Mogador (Essaouira), the last being the most distant Phoenician settlement so far known. Finds of similar age have been made at Motya (Mozia) in Sicily, Nora (Nurri), Sulcis, and Tharros (San Giovanni di Sinis) in Sardinia, and C�diz and Almu��car in Spain. Unlike the Greek settlements, however, those of the Phoenicians long remained politically dependent on their homeland, and only a few were situated where the hinterland had the potential for development. The emergence of Carthage as an independent power, leading to the creation of an empire based on the secure possession of the North African coast, resulted less from the weakening of Tyre, the chief city of Phoenicia, by the Babylonians than from growing pressure from the Greeks in the western Mediterranean; in 580 BC some Greek cities in Sicily attempted to drive the Phoenicians from Motya and Panormus (Palermo) in the west of the island. The Carthaginians feared that if the Greeks won the whole of Sicily they would move on to Sardinia and beyond, isolating the Phoenicians in North Africa. The successful defense of Sicily was followed by attempts to strengthen limited footholds in Sardinia; a fortress at Monte Sirai is the oldest Phoenician military building in the west. The threat from the Greeks receded when Carthage, in alliance with Etruscan cities, checked the Phocaeans off Corsica in about 540 BC and succeeded in excluding the Greeks from contact with southern Spain. 

Carthage

This North African colony was founded by Tyre in the C9th and had one of the best ports in the Mediterranean. After the Babylonians captured Tyre in the C6th BC, it became the centre of the Phoenician trading empire. A long conflict with Greece centred on Sicily, which was held by Greek colonies in the east and Carthaginian trading stations in the west. The Carthaginians prevented a Greek attempt to land in Corsica c 540 BC, and in 480 BC, the Greeks defeated the Carthaginians at Himera when they attempted to conquer the whole of Sicily. Carthage was an aristocratic republic with two chief magistrates elected every year and Senate of 300 life members. The population is said to have been over 700 000. Its strength lay in its powerful navy and commercial base but the armies were mostly mercenaries.