The Historians' History of the World 02 [Israel, India, Persia, Phoenicia, Minor Nations of Western Asia]

THE SITE AND EARLY HISTORY OF CARTHAGE

The point of land still called Capo Cartagine, which projects from the eastern side of the Gulf of Tunis, near the entrance of the Goletta, was in ancient times more nearly a peninsula than it is now, and corresponds exactly with the description given by Thucydides of the sites selected for the purposes of commerce by the Phœnicians. Its height, which is still nearly five hundred feet above the sea, afforded a good lookout; and as a shelter for ships the qualities of the bay are familiar from the description of Virgil, Æn. 1, 160. It was in this way that all the principal colonies of Phœnicia arose, and in this sense Carthage may have owed its origin to the times when Sidon was predominant among the Phœnician cities. But its rapid rise to power was due to a colony from Tyre about the end of the ninth century B.C. The circumstances which led to the migration of Dido belong to the special history of that city. The colony first established itself on the hill called by the Greeks Byrsa, still recognised in the elevated ground which bears the name of St. Louis. It is now only about one hundred and ninety feet above the level of the sea; but its height above the neighbouring ground, on which its strength depended, has no doubt been diminished by the accumulation of ruins around its base. The name, which, from its resemblance to the Greek word for hide, gave rise to the story of Dido’s purchase of as much land as a hide would cover, is Phœnician, and denotes a fortress. Like the Cadmea at Thebes, which it resembled in name, it was the place of arms of the original settlers, the magalia of the civil population being gathered around the base, and gradually forming the New City, the signification of the name Carthage, by which both parts collectively are known, as Neapolis (Naples) has absorbed its older neighbour, Palæpolis. The work of excavating for themselves a dock, in which Virgil represents them as engaged at the arrival of Æneas, would soon follow their settlement; for, though they came with arms in their hands, they came rather as merchants than as warriors, and their first accessions of population were from the inhabitants of the neighbourhood, who flocked to them for the purpose of trade. It was probably in the same place, on the southern side of the peninsula, where we now see the remains of two basins, designed to hold the war navy of Carthage, in the day of its power. They have become a salt marsh; but under the Byzantine emperors, and after the Mohammedan conquest, they retained their ancient use.

We have much cause to regret the diffidence or vanity which made Sallust decline to speak of Carthage, because he had not space to do justice to such a theme. In the wreck which has taken place of ancient literature, even a few lines from his pen would have given us information which we now seek in vain. Its history naturally divides itself into three periods: from its foundation to the year 480 B.C., when its wars in Sicily began; from the year 480 to 265 when its wars with Rome began; and finally, from 265 to 146, when it was destroyed. We are entirely destitute of any continuous history for the first of these periods. The primary cause of its rapid increase is no doubt to be found in the fertility of the soil, and the fortunate selection of its site, midway between the seats of art and civilisation in Asia and the rich countries in the southwest of Europe,—within an easy distance also of the coasts of southern Italy and the islands of Malta, Sicily, Sardinia, and the Balearic Isles. The richest portion of the traffic with these western regions, that with the south of Spain, was kept to itself by Phœnicia, during the time of its ascendency; but as a compensation for its exclusion from the mines of Tartessus, Carthage enjoyed ready access to the interior of Africa, by the caravans, in which the nomadic tribes conveyed the salt and the dates with which the north of Africa abounds, across the Sahara to the countries on the Niger, and brought back thence gold-dust, precious stones, and slaves. They had traffic with the natives of Ethiopia by a different channel. They had visited and colonised the western coast of Africa, as low down as Arguin, and dealt with the natives by dumb barter, receiving gold-dust from them in exchange for their own wares.