Carthage after Tyre

CHAPTER XII

Carthage After the Fall of Tyre—How the Last Phoenician City Waged War Against Rome and Was Erased from the Earth

The fall of Tyre in 332 BCE marked the end of Phoenician political independence in the east. But Carthage, the greatest of the colonies, continued to speak the language of Hiram and Elissa for two more centuries. Her wars with Rome would determine the fate of the western Mediterranean.

The Rise of Carthage

Carthage, founded by Elissa around 814 BCE, grew into a metropolis of perhaps half a million inhabitants, with a double harbour, massive fortifications, and a constitution praised by Aristotle (Politics 2.11). The city preserved Phoenician institutions — the suffetes, the temple of Melqart, the annual offering to Tyre — long after the mother city had fallen.

The First Punic War (264–241 BCE)

The conflict began as a minor intervention in Sicily and became a twenty-three-year war. Rome, a land power, learned to fight at sea by capturing a Carthaginian quinquereme and using it as a model. The war ended with Carthaginian defeat: Sicily was evacuated, and a massive indemnity imposed.

The Mercenary War (241–237 BCE)

Carthage, unable to pay its mercenaries, faced a revolt that nearly destroyed the city. Hamilcar Barca suppressed the rebellion with ruthless skill and then turned to a new project: the conquest of Spain.

Hannibal and the Second Punic War (218–201 BCE)

Hannibal, the son of Hamilcar, was the greatest general of the ancient world. In 218 BCE, he marched his army across the Alps and invaded Italy. At the Trebia River, at Lake Trasimene, and at Cannae — where he destroyed a Roman army twice the size of his own — he demonstrated a mastery of strategy unparalleled in history.

But Hannibal could not take Rome. Lacking siege engines, supply lines, and a fleet, he was confined to southern Italy while the war turned elsewhere. In 204 BCE, Scipio invaded Africa. At Zama in 202 BCE, the two greatest generals of the age met. Hannibal was defeated. Carthage surrendered its empire.

The Third Punic War and the Destruction of Carthage (149–146 BCE)

The Roman senator Cato ended every speech with the words: Carthago delenda est — "Carthage must be destroyed." In 146 BCE, Scipio Aemilianus breached the walls. The fighting lasted six days, house by house. The survivors — fifty thousand — were sold into slavery. The city was burned. Salt, according to legend, was ploughed into the earth.

The destruction of Carthage was not an act of war. It was an act of erasure. The libraries of Carthage were burned. The gods were banned or absorbed. The history was written by the victors, and it painted the Carthaginians as treacherous and cruel — Punica fides, "Punic faith," became a Roman insult.

The Survival of the Phoenicians

The Phoenicians did not disappear. Their blood flows in the veins of the modern Lebanese. Their alphabet is the script in which this book is written. Their gods, concealed beneath Greek and Roman names, continued to be worshipped for centuries. Rome fell. Carthage, in its Roman form, rose again. The language of Hiram is gone, but the letters of Taautus remain.

Sources for Chapter XII: Polybius, Histories 1–15; Livy, History of Rome 21–30; Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 25, 32; Appian, Punic Wars; Aristotle, Politics 2.11; Cornelius Nepos, Life of Hannibal; Plutarch, Life of Fabius Maximus; Pliny the Elder, Natural History 18.22; Serge Lancel, Carthage: A History (1995); Richard Miles, Carthage Must Be Destroyed (2010); Dexter Hoyos, The Carthaginians (2010).