Carthage

From a point 400 km east of Oea (modern Tripoli), Carthaginian territory followed the African coast in a narrow strip round to the Atlantic, where several settlements were established by Hanno at the start of the fifth century BC. A day's sailing separated these coastal cities, towns and trading centers. In addition to this territory on the North African mainland, Carthage controlled Malta, several commanding strongholds in western Sicily, the coastal plains of Sardinia and parts of Corsica and the south of Spain. In the mid-third century BC Carthage extended its control to the Spanish interior.

In the early fifth century BC, Carthage entered into an alliance with Xerxes, the Persian king whose campaigns in mainland Greece coincided with the Carthaginian drive to crush the Greek city states of eastern Sicily. The army of Carthage met defeat at Himera in 480 BC, on the same day, according to tradition, as the Persian disaster at Salamis. In a later campaign (415-13 BC) Carthaginian conquest of eastern Sicily was only narrowly averted by the Greek tyrant Dionysius I of Syracuse, who continued to resist Carthaginian aggression until his death in 367.

His son, Dionysius II, made peace with Carthage in 338 and a third inconclusive war between Carthage and Agathocles of Syracuse ended in 289 BC.

In 264 BC war broke out between Rome and Carthage over possession of the Sicilian town of Messina. A Roman army was defeated near Carthage and other Roman legions met disaster at the hands of the Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca in Sicily before the Carthaginian fleet was finally crushed in a battle off the Sicilian coast in 241 BC. Carthage was forced to surrender to Rome the islands of Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica. Hamilcar Barca began the conquest of inland Spain for Carthage in 237, seeking access to the wealth and manpower of the peninsula.

The second war with Rome commenced when Hamilcar's son, Hannibal, came from Spain and crossed the Alps into Italy. Hannibal defeated the Romans in one battle after another until, at Cannae in 216, he wiped out an entire Roman army of 30,000 men.

Rome recovered slowly and in 202 defeated Hannibal's army in North Africa at the battle of Zama. Rome seized control of the Iberian peninsula and left Carthage greatly weakened. Roman fears of a Carthaginian revival persisted for the next 50 years. Eventually the urgings of Cato the Elder that Carthage must be destroyed swayed the opinion of the Roman Senate, which engineered a third war with Carthage in 149 BC. Three years later the African city was taken, its citizens were sold into slavery, its walls were razed and the ground was sown with salt.

Julius Caesar refounded Carthage as a Roman city in 44 BC and it quickly emerged as the administrative center of Roman Africa. It became the third most important city in the Roman Empire after Rome and Alexandria. Although lacking political power, Carthage was destined to be a significant focus of Christianity and a leading center of Latin studies. Carthage served as the Vandal capital from AD 429 until 533, when it was conquered by the Byzantines. In 697 the city was captured by the Arabs. It rebelled a year later and was destroyed.