Carthage Must Be Destroyed

by Richard Miles

  89 Burkert 1992, 33–40; Lancel 1995, 351–3.

  90 Hudson 1992, 134–5. For weights and measures, see Lydus Liber de Mensibus 1.9.

  91 Lloyd 1975, 54.

  92 As well as Thucydides (1.13) there was Diodorus (14.42.1–3) and Pliny NH 7.207. However, according to Clement of Alexandria (Stromateis 1.16.76), it was the Phoenicians who invented the trireme, and Pliny the Elder (NH 7.208) contended that Aristotle believed the Carthaginians to be responsible for the quadrireme. Lloyd is certainly right to contend that it is dangerous to mine Christian polemic for empirical facts, but goes too far in arguing that Clement’s claim that the Phoenicians invented the trireme is ‘historically worthless’ (Lloyd 1975, 49–51; 1980, 197). Some of Clement’s claims are certainly correct.

  93 That is when Polycrates, ruler of Samos, sent forty triremes to take part in the Persian naval expedition to Egypt (Herodotus 3.44). The arguments of Lloyd (1975, 52–4) that there is good evidence for the trireme being developed by the Corinthians in the seventh century BC rely on a fragmentary source writing during the reign of the Roman emperor Augustus, supported by the somewhat tenuous use of modern precedents to explain why the Greeks take advantage of this technology earlier than the Phoenicians. Furthermore, Thucydides never made the claim that it was the Corinthians who had invented the trireme: merely that they had been the first Greeks to build one before its designer, a certain Ameinocles, went to Samos, where he built a further four of these vessels (1.13).

  94 Despite the ingenuous efforts of Lloyd 1975, 55—7. Lloyd’s (1980, 196–7) questioning of Phoenician involvement in the Memphite dockyard of Prwnfr during this period does not undermine this wider point. For the Phoenicians supplying timber to Egypt see Basch 1969, 231ff.

  95 Basch 1977, 1–8; 1980, 199.

  96 There were clearly differences between the Phoenician and the Greek craft. According to Herodotus (8.118–19), the Phoenician triremes had a continuous deck. Plutarch (Them. 14.2) also drew a clear distinction between the light, low Greek ships and their taller ‘barbarian’ counterparts with higher poops and decks. The Phoenician trireme also appears to have had a slightly different design of stern, carried shields along the gunwale, and had a differently shaped ram (Lloyd 1975, 48).

  97 Plato Phaed. 109B.

  98 Abulafia 2005, 64–9. For a wide-ranging study of the ancient and medieval Mediterranean that explores these ideas see Horden & Purcell 2000, as well as a collection of well-considered responses to the book in Harris 2005.

  99 Homer Iliad 23.740–45, 6.286–96.

  100 Homer Odyssey 15.415–16. Capomacchia 1991.

  101 Homer Odyssey 15.498–615, 14.287–300.

  102 Winter 1995.

  103 Van Dommelen 1998, 80—81, 111.

  104 Trump 1992, 198–203; Bonzani 1992, 210—20. This transformation of the Nuragic landscape is perhaps best reflected in the change in design and function of the nuraghi. In the first millennium BC, some classic nuraghi –usually consisting of a fortified single tower whose existence appears to have been very much concerned with status and ownership within the community—developed into more complex structures. Extra towers and connecting walls were now added, which suggests that these particular nuraghi had become primarily military fortresses. Often these complexes seem to have developed villages around them, suggesting that the population were now living within a complex, socially stratified community (Ugas 1992, 229—30).

  105 See the arguments of Rendeli 2005 for an initial considerable Euboean presence in Sulcis.

  106 Giardino 1992, 304.

  107 González de Canales, Serrano & Llompart 2006.

  108 Lipiński 2004, 234–47. There is no consensus on the meaning of the Nora Stone. Peckham (1972) argued that the stele described Milkaton’s ship(s) being blown away from Spain in a storm and safely landing in Sardinia. Cross (1972b) favoured interpreting it as describing a military expedition to Sardinia and ‘Tarshish’ as a settlement on the island which Milkaton and his troops had captured before the establishment of a truce with the indigenous people of the island. Cross also translated Pmy (-yton) as Pygmalion, the ninth-century-BC king of Tyre, who had authorized Milkaton’s expedition, rather than as the god Pummay. Cross (1987) takes another very fragmentary inscription found at Nora as evidence for Phoenician activity on Sardinia in the eleventh century BC, but this is rather tenuous.

  109 Diodorus 5.35.4–5.

  110 Frankenstein 1979, 288.

  111 Niemeyer 1990, 471—2.

  112 Nijboer & Van de Plicht 2006. Phoenician pottery from that period has been found at the port of Huelva.

  113 Aubet 2001, 281–3.

  114 Strabo 3.5.5.

  115 Diodorus 5.20.3.

  116 Aubet 2001, 186–91.

  117 Herodotus 4.152; Aubet 2001, 279–80, for the ore equivalence.

  118 Aubet 2006, 96–105; Van Dommelen 2006, 124–6.

  119 Aubet 2006, 106.

  120 In some Near Eastern states such as the north-Syrian state of Ugarit, the head of the merchants’ guild and some of its members had actually received a regular salary from the royal palace. In return the merchants sometimes acted as the king’s envoys (Kochavi 1992, 13–14).

  121 Aubet 2001, 116–19.

  122 Strabo 3.5.5; Philostratus Apollon. 5.4.

  123 Strabo 3.5.7. When discussing the spring, Strabo cites Polybius. It is interesting to note that Nonnus also makes much of supposed springs in his Tyrian foundation myth.

  124 Aubet 2006, 106.

  125 A third-century-AD visitor to the sanctuary, Apollonius of Tyana, asked the temple priests about the meaning of these strange inscriptions, but they could offer no explanation. Apollonius would come up with his own explanation that ‘These pillars bind Earth and Heaven together, and he [the creator] inscribed them himself in the house of the Fates, to ensure that there was no strife between the elements, and that they should not neglect the affection that they feel for each other’ (Philostratus Apollon. 5.4–5).

  126 Justin 44.5.2.

  127 Silius Italicus (Pun. 3.14–44), although writing a rather blowsy and overblown epic for a Roman audience in the second century AD, gives a useful account of the temple of Melqart at Gades. The doors of the sanctuary on to which, according to Silius, the labours of Heracles were etched must have been a later development or even a product of his extremely lively imagination. For other mentions of sacrificial rites at the sanctuary see Diodorus 5.20.2.

  128 In a clear reference to the egersis of Melqart, Philostratus stated that the people of Gades were ‘the only people to celebrate Death’ (Apollon. 5.4).

  129 Pausanias 10.4.6.

  130 Aubet 2001, 273–9.

  131 Aubet 2001, 55—7.

  132 Moscati 1968, 19–21; Aubet 2001, 57—9.

  133 Aubet 2001, 57.

  CHAPTER 2: NEW CITY: THE RISE OF CARTHAGE

  1 Justin (18.4) calls the exiles ‘princes’, which may suggest that they were part of that elite group the Tyrian ‘merchant princes’.

  2 Baurain 1988, 21–2; Scheid & Svenbro 1985, 329, 338.

  3 Scheid & Svenbro 1985, 334–8.

  4 Bunnens 1986, 124–5, for the parallel with American Thanksgiving.

  5 Scheid & Svenbro 1985, 329, 338.

  6 Krahmalkov 1981.

  7 For the general problem of marrying the literary testimony with the archaeological record see Bunnens 1979, 299–320.

  8 New radio-carbon analysis might push this back to around 800 BC (Docter et al. 2006, 39).

  9 For convincing arguments against treating Philo of Byblos as a reliable source for the early Phoenician world see Barr 1974 and Edwards 1991.

  10 Philistus Fr. 47, FGH, IIIB: 564; Appian 8.1.1 (in which ‘Azoros’ had become ‘Zoros’); Lancel 1995, 20–22.

  11 Huss 1985, 405—6.

  12 Aubet 2001, 227; Bordreuil & Ferjaoui 1988.

  13 The linguistic footprint of Punic shows that it was an amalgam of a number of different Phoenician dialects. Certai
n religious practices such as the use of red ochre in Punic funerary rituals point to a strong native Libyan element (Benichou-Safar 1982, 265–6; Lancel 1995, 53; Docter et al. 2006, 35).

  14 Unfortunately, as with the vast majority of public structures in Punic Carthage, no traces of the temples of these deities have been found. However, several smaller temples have been discovered in Carthage as well as at important religious centres in other areas of the Punic West. Melqart temple inscription = CIS i.4894, 5575. Astarte as the consort of Melqart = CIS i.250, 2785, 4839, 4850, 5657. The temple of Eshmoun situated on the summit of the Byrsa hill was the most famous temple in Carthage.

  15 Diodorus 20.14.2; Polybius 31.12; Arrian Anabasis 2.24.5; Quintus Curtius Rufus 4.2.10; Aubet 2001, 157. Some scholars have argued that the potential links with Cyprus revealed in the foundation myth reflect the reality of a strong Cypriot element among the city’s early population (Kourou 2002, 102–5). However, the material evidence for an early Cypriot involvement with Carthage is not particularly strong compared with that for other areas of the Greek world (ibid., 90–92; Bisi 1988, 31).

  16 Niemeyer 1990, 487.

  17 Bunnens (1979) has speculated that Carthage started not as a deliberate colonial venture but as a trading post with a resident group of merchants like the other western Phoenician settlements, and that it was only later that the Carthaginians reinvented their past as an exceptional colonial establishment. There is little doubt that a process of rebranding did take place as Carthage became more powerful, but part of this success was based on the particularity of its circumstances as a planned colonial establishment. Baurain (1988) has ingeniously suggested that this myth may in fact be the result of a misappropriation of a foundation myth relating instead to the city of Carthage on the island of Cyprus. However, this thesis is founded on the mistaken belief that the literary accounts and archaeological evidence need to correlate with each other. There is little reason not to believe that the myth does relate to African Carthage.

  18 Kourou 2002, 92–7.

  19 Niemeyer & Docter 1993; Vegas 1999; Kourou 2002, 92–6.

  20 Docter 2000b.

  21 Briese & Docter 1992; Kourou 2002, 101–2. However, Boardman’s (2006, 199) suggestion that Carthage may well have been originally a ‘multi-national comptoir’ exaggerates the Euboean influence on the early settlement.

  22 Niemeyer & Docter 1993, 213–14.

  23 Van Zeist, Bottema & Van de Veen 2001.

  24 Van Wijngaarden-Bakker 2007, 846–8.

  25 Bechtold 2008, 75–6; Fentress & Docter 2008, 2–3.

  26 Docter et al. 2006, 39–43.

  27 Ibid., 39–45.

  28 For the possible existence of an older, eighth-century-BC, cemetery in Carthage see Docter et al. 2003, 46–8; 2006, 43–5.

  29 Lancel 1995, 51–5.

  30 Benichou-Safar 1982, 262, 272–85; Tore 1995; Debergh 1973, 241–2; Gsell 1924, 457—8.

  31 Fantar 1979, 12–15; Dussaud 1935, 270; Gsell 1924, 457.

  32 Virolleaud 1931, 355; Dussaud 1935, 269; Díes Cusí 1995, 413–14.

  33 Aubet 2001, 219; Lancel 1995, 45; Docter et al. 2006, 39–40.

  34 Lancel 1995, 60–76. The continued strong Levantine influence can also be ascertained by the wide-scale production at Carthage of decorated ostrich eggs, which were exported throughout the western Phoenician world and were often part of grave-good assemblages. The significance of ostrich eggs appears to have been their association with the existence in Phoenician religious thought of a great ‘cosmic egg’ which when split in two represented the primordial separation between the heavens and the earth. Carthage’s location in Africa must have ensured a steady supply of these eggs (Ribichini 1995, 338).

  35 Van Dommelen 1998, 81–84; 2006, 127–30. This might also explain Phoenician burials on Sardinia which contained ingots of metal among the grave assemblages (Fletcher 2006, 179–80).

  36 Fentress & Docter 2008, 3. In Carthage, archaeologists have discovered considerable numbers of Nuragic amphorae that were used for the transport of food and other raw materials. At the Phoenician settlement of Sant’ Imbenia the remains of a metal-workshop store have been found containing 20 kilograms of copper bars, which suggests that this may have been a centre for processing metal ore.

  37 Ibid.

  38 The most intricate of the tombs that have been discovered consist of a burial chamber with the body housed in a stone sarcophagus or in a niche cut into the walls. Stone slabs formed a kind of pitched roof over the chamber. The frontage of the chamber was usually closed off by a blocked wall. The richest of these tombs were further embellished with fine white plaster on the internal walls and scented-wood panelling on the ceiling. However, most early Carthaginians were buried more simply, in excavated rectangular pits, boxed in by stone slabs (Lancel 1995, 46–51).

  39 Herodotus 7.165–6; Diodorus 13.43.5, 14.34.5.

  40 Aubet 2001, 229; Huss 1985, 496–7.

  41 Sznycer 1978, 567—70.

  42 Lancel 1995, 210—11. At the temple of Baal Saphon there were five different price categories: adult cattle, calves, adult sheep, lambs and, lastly, birds. For the less well-off, cheaper offerings of pastries, oil, milk and flour could also be made.

  43 In several inscriptions from Carthage the title ‘Resurrector of the Divine husband of Astarte’ or ‘Awakener of the Dead God with the scent of Astronoeˉ’ (depending on the translation) appears (CIS i.227, 260–62, 377; i.5510). Most scholars agree that these are references to priests of Melqart (Lipiński 1970, 30–58; Krahmalkov 2000, 308–9; Lancel 1995, 204–7).

  44 Lancel 1995, 199–204. She was often addressed on inscriptions as Rabbat (‘The Lady’ or ‘The Mother’) or Rabbatenû (‘Our Lady’).

  45 Le Glay 1966, 440; Lancel 1995, 194–9. Very few examples of any iconography for Baal Hammon have been discovered, however, a fragment of a stele dating to the fifth century BC and found at a coastal settlement some 160 kilometres from Carthage shows a bearded god wearing a conical headdress and a long robe. In one hand he holds a spear, and he appears to be giving a blessing with the other.

  46 Exodus 22:29. Sacrifice of kings’ sons = 2 Kings 16:3, 21:6. For studies of molk sacrifice in the Old Testament see Heider 1985. For backlash, see Deuteronomy 12:31, 18:10; Jeremiah 7:31, 19:5, 32:35; Ezekiel 20:31. For other examples of the sacrifice of sons and daughters in the Old Testament see Aubet 2001, 246–8.

  47 Eusebius Evang. Praep. 1.10.44. This information was purported to have originally come from the work of Sanchuniathon, a Phoenician who lived in Berytus (modern Beirut) around 1000 BC.

  48 Gianto 1987. In addition, a fire temple discovered at Amman in Jordan has produced a large number of human bones which some archaeologists have connected to sacrifice (Ottoson 1980, 101–4).

  49 For the fullest studies of child sacrifice in Carthage and the Punic world see Shelby Brown 1991, Benichou-Safar 2004, Stager 1982 and Stager & Wolff 1984. In terms of ancient testament, a fragment of the fifth-century-BC Athenian dramatist Sophocles’ play Andromeda alludes to ‘foreigners’ who perform human sacrifice in honour of the god Cronus. The reason why scholars have presumed that this is a reference to the Punic world is that Cronus was the Greek equivalent of Baal Hammon, chief deity of Carthage. However, the first specific mention of child sacrifice in Carthage hails from the fourth century BC (Plato Minos 315B—C). The influential Greek philosopher Theophrastus (c.371—287 BC) also alleged that human sacrifice was a current Carthaginian practice (Fr. 13.22–6; Porphyry On Abstinence 2.27.2). The Sicilian Greek author Diodorus (13.86.3) would claim that a Carthaginian commander had sacrificed a child to Cronus as his forces besieged a city in order to elicit the support of the god. A later Roman author would claim that such was the Carthaginians’ barbarity that even the Persians, hardly known for their mildness, ordered that they cease this foul tradition (Justin 19.1.10).

  50 Diodorus 20.14.4–7.

  51 Cleitarchus Scholia 377A. For a similar observation see Plato Minos 31
5B—C.

  52 Plutarch Mor. 171C—D.

  53 Cintas’ chapel, which the excavator believed to be the levelling for the first Phoenician structure on the tophet, is most probably just the remains of a number of disturbed urns (Gras, Rouillard & Teixidor 1995, 273).

  54 Lancel 1995, 249–50.

  55 Aubet 2001, 251–2; Lancel 1995, 248–9.

  56 CIS i.5507.

  57 Aubet 2001, 247.

  58 Several of the inscriptions from the Carthage tophet contain the formula ‘by the decree of the people of Carthage’ (Aubet 2001, 254).

  59 Van Dommelen 1998, 116.

  60 Van Dommelen 2006, 122—3 for the different settlement models in the far West and the central Mediterranean.

  61 Evidence of Carthage’s heavy involvement in maintaining the old trading links with Greece and the Levant comes from Malta and its sister island of Gozo, key stopping-off points on the trans-Mediterranean shipping lanes, where there is clear archaeological evidence for a Carthaginian presence on the islands by the late sixth century BC (Sagona 2002, 25–53).

  62 Huss 1985, 57–74.

  63 Bunnens (1979) in particular presents an imperialist Carthage and erroneously pushes the idea of the Phoenicians themselves as imperialist colonizers rather than traders.

  64 Schulten 1922. Most recently Braun (2004, 302) has argued as a likely guess that Carthage destroyed Tartessus around 500 BC and took over its trade.

  65 Justin 44.5.1–3. This is not the only story told of tensions between the indigenous Spanish and Gades. Macrobius, a Roman author of the fifth century AD, tells the story of a certain King Theron who attacked the city (Sat. 1.20.12). See also Vitruvius 10.1–3. This much later Roman military text asserts that the battering ram had been first been used by the Carthaginians at this siege. Although no date for the incident is given by Vitruvius, he goes on to say that it was before Philip of Macedon’s siege of Byzantium of 340–339 BC, where Philip copied the same technique. The story is also mentioned by another treatise written in the earlier period (Athenaeus 4.9.3: Krings 1998, 229–60; Barcelo 1988, 1–22, 38–42).