Dexter Hoyos - Carthage

Carthage tells the life story of the city, both as one of the Mediterraneans great seafaring powers before 146 bc , and after its refounding in the first century bc . It provides a comprehensive history of the city and its unique culture, and offers students an insight into Romes greatest enemy.

Hoyos explores the history of Carthage from its foundation, traditionally claimed to have been by political exiles from Phoenicia in 813 bc , through to its final desertion in ad 698 at the hands of fresh eastern arrivals, the Arabs. In these 1500 years, Carthage had two distinct lives, separated by a hundred-year silence. In the first and most famous life, the city traded and warred on equal terms with Greeks and then with Rome, which ultimately led to Rome utterly destroying the city after the Third Punic War. A second Carthage, Roman in form, was founded by Julius Caesar in 44 bc and flourished, both as a centre for Christianity and as capital of the Vandal kingdom, until the seventh-century expansion of the Umayyad Caliphate.

Carthage is a comprehensive study of this fascinating city across 15 centuries that provides a fascinating insight into Punic history and culture for students and scholars of Carthaginian, Roman, and Late Antique history. Written in an accessible style, this volume is also suitable for the general reader.

Dexter Hoyos is former Associate Professor of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Sydney, Australia.

Cities of the Ancient World examines the history, archaeology and cultural significance of key cities from across the ancient world, spanning northern Europe, the Mediterranean, Africa, Asia and the Near East. Each volume explores the life of a significant place, charting its developments from its earliest history, through the transformations it experienced under different cultures and rulers, through to its later periods. These texts offer academics, students and the interested reader comprehensive and scholarly accounts of the life of each city.

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Internal Politics and External Policy in Ancient Greece

Graeme Bourke

Aleppo

A History

Ross Burns

Palmyra

A History

Michael Sommer

Damascus

A History, 2nd edition

Ross Burns

A History of Siena

From its Origins to the Present Day

Mario Ascheri and Bradley Franco

Ebla

Archaeology and History

Paolo Matthiae

Carthage

A Biography

Dexter Hoyos

https://www.routledge.com/classicalstudies/series/CITYBIOS

First published 2021

by Routledge

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2021 Dexter Hoyos

The right of Dexter Hoyos to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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ISBN: 978-1-138-78820-6 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-367-63543-5 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-003-11968-5 (ebk)

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Made by Author

Key to Map 5: 1: Basilica of Bir Ftouha. 2: Basilica Maiorum. 3: Basilica of St Cyprian. 4: Basilica of Damous el Karita. 5: Rotunda of Damous el Karita. 6: Aqueduct of Zaghouan. 7: Cisterns of La Malga. 8: Circular Monument. 9: Theatre. 10: Odeon. 11: Roman villas. 12: Reservoirs of Borj Jedid. 13: Punic cemeteries. 14: Antonine Baths. 15: Bigua monastery. 16: Monument with columns [a temple?]. 17: The Hannibal quarter on Byrsa's slope. 18: Amphitheatre. 19: Circus [racecourse]. 20: Basilica of Bir Messaouda. 21: Basilica of Carthagenna. 22: lot de l'Amiraut. 23: Circular (naval) harbour. 24: Merchant harbour. 25: Basilica of BirelKnissia. 26: The tophet.

I am very grateful to Routledge and their Classics Editor, Amy Davis-Poynter, for inviting me to participate in their Cities of the Ancient World series, and then for their forbearance over delays much longer than foreseen which befell me as I wrote. My thanks also to the keen eye and judgement of my copy editor, Shannon Smith.

This book would not have been possible, too, without my Affiliateship as Honorary Associate Professor in the University of Sydneys Department of Classics and Ancient History. This continues my association with the University which started in 1972, and opens scholarly access to the wide-ranging facilities of our University Library, including online books, journals, and databases. My special thanks to Fisher Librarys always supportive librarians and IT specialists, and also to the able and helpful administrative staff of SOPHI (the School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry), in particular Ms Nikki Whipps, our Research Support Officer.

My endless thanks and gratitude go to the five persons who adorn my life and put up so generously with my baffling ancient pursuits: Jann Hoyos, Camilla and Anthony Padula, and two energetic grandchildren, Scarlett and Henry. I dedicate this book to them.

Around the year 813 bc a small flotilla of Phoenician ships moored along the shore by the northern entrance to the lake of Tunis in North Africa. Their landfall was a narrow coastal strip bounded to its north by a broad headland, todays La Marsa-Gammarth, and on its western side by an arc of low hills less than 500 metres from the waters edge. Flat and marshy ground stretched between the southernmost hill and the shore of the lake, which was actually a small bay opening into the outer sea, the Gulf of Tunis. The whole area formed the terminus, arrowhead-shaped, of a narrow isthmus between the lake on its southern side and another inlet at its northern edge, today the salt lake called Sebkha Ariana. Westward lay the rest of the country which Greeks called