The artist’s illustration shown above is a bird’s eye view of the ancient Roman city of Carthage. This city existed during the reign of the Holy Roman Empire and was part of the larger Carthaginian Empire. The ancient city is now located in present-day Tunisia in northern Africa.
This city was founded by ancient Phoenicians in 814 BC and is one of their earliest settlement areas. Its name in Phoenician is Kart-hadasht, meaning “new town”. The Phoenicians strategically chose where to place the city: in an area where there is plenty of fish, trade was possible, and storms are less likely to occur. They chose the coastal area in the Gulf of Tunis, near the Mediterranean Sea.
Sadly, the ancient city was no more as a result of the three Punic Wars that occurred from 264 to 146 BC, all of which pitted Roman soldiers against Carthaginian troops. The fall of Carthage during the end of the third Punic War assured the dominance of Rome over the city and the whole Carthaginian civilization.
Reddit user u/wildeastmofo notes that after the city’s Roman occupation, its leader Julius Caesar created a brand new Carthage city from the ground up. It would eventually be the “fourth largest city of the empire” with over 100,000 residents and notable architectural achievements. It experienced invasions by the Vandal Kingdom and the Byzantine Empire, until the city was wiped out anew in a takeover by the Muslim Maghrebs in 698 AD.
Learn more about this ancient city and the whole Carthaginian civilization by checking out these books:
- Carthage Must Be Destroyed: The Rise and Fall of an Ancient Civilization
- Captivating History: Carthage
- The Empire of Africa: The Rise and Fall of Carthage, 850-145 BC
- Rome and Carthage: The Punic Wars, 264 BC – 146 BC
- Carthage’s Other Wars: Carthaginian Warfare Outside the ‘Punic Wars’ Against Rome
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