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| d. Carthage and the Western Phoenician Colonies |
| 1100–600 |
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| The Foundation of the Western Colonies. The Phoenicians founded merchant colonies as early as the 11th century (at Hazor and Gaza in Palestine, Memphis in Egypt, and Kition (Latarkia) in Cyprus), but these were all quarters within established cities rather than separate settlements. Literary sources place the foundation of Phoenician colonies at Lixus (on the Atlantic coast of Africa), Gades (on the Atlantic coast of Spain), and Utica (in North Africa) at around 1100, but these dates have not been confirmed archaeologically. These three early colonies were probably settled by late 10th or early 9th centuries. Around 850, the settlement at Kition moved out of the native town and established itself as an independent town called Qart Hadasht—New City. The next Phoenician colony to be founded became the most famous—Carthage. The city's Phoenician name was the same as Kition's: Qart-Hadasht (Greek Carchedon and Latin Carthago). Several versions of its founding exist: one has Elissa (Dido) fleeing from Tyre and founding the city of Carthage in the 7th year of Pu`mayton (814), but another source gives the foundation date as 751. No archaeological remains have been uncovered at Carthage before the 8th century, but both dates remain possible. The colony of Sexi in Spain was also founded in the 8th century, probably in response to a growing Greek colonization movement. In the 7th century, the Tyrians established settlements at Lepcis Magna and Hadrumetum in North Africa; Motya in Sicily; and Sulcis, Caralis, Nora, and Tharros in Sardinia. Around the same time, Mogador was founded on an island on the West African coast, 450 miles south of the Strait of Gibralter. Carthage established Ibiza, off the east coast of Spain, 160 years after its own founding, in 654 or 591. | 1 |
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| 600–322 |
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| The Rise of Carthage. Around 600, Carthage tried unsuccessfully to prevent the Phocaean Greeks from founding Massilia (Marseilles) (See 600), and in the 6th century, open war broke out between the Greeks and an alliance of the Etruscans and Carthaginians. The Carthaginians under Malchus defeated the Greeks in Sicily around 550. In 535, the Carthaginian-Etruscan alliance crushed the Phocaeans in the sea Battle of Alalia in Corsica. From the mid-sixth to fourth centuries, Mago and his descendants dominated Carthage, either as monarchs or as political strongmen. By this time, the population of Carthage was probably around half a million—about 20 percent Phoenician and the rest native Berbers. In 508, the Carthaginians signed a treaty with the new Roman state. While Xerxes was invading Greece, in 480 (See c. 586–330), the Carthaginians invaded Sicily but were defeated at the Battle of Himera by the forces of Syracuse and Agrigentum. Around this time the Carthaginians turned inland, taking over the city's fertile Libyan hinterland. In the fifth century the voyage of Hanno occurred down the African coast, as far as Sierra Leone and perhaps Nigeria, as well as the voyage of Himilco, which may have reached Britain or Ireland. Around 409, war broke out again between Syracuse and Carthage: in a seesaw struggle Dionysius sacked Motya in 398 and the Carthaginians besieged Syracuse unsuccessfully in 396. The Syracusans ultimately won this war, but fighting between the Carthaginians and Syracusans continued through much of the fourth century. In 348, a second treaty was signed with Rome, and the subsequent history of Carthage is part of Roman history (See 344 (348)). | 2 |
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