[18.6] When the power of the Carthaginians, from success in their proceedings, had risen to some height, Hiarbas, king of the Maxitani, desiring an interview with ten of the chief men of Carthage, demanded Elissa in marriage, denouncing war in case of a refusal. The deputies, fearing to report this message to the queen, acted towards her with Carthaginian artifice, saying that “the king asked for some person to teach him and his Africans a more civilized way of life, but who could be found that would leave his relations and go to barbarians and people that were living like wild beasts?” Being then reproached by the queen, “in case they refused a hard life for the benefit of their country, to which, should circumstances require, their life itself was due,” they disclosed the king’s message, saying that “she herself, if she wished her city to be secure, must do what she required of others.” Being caught by this subtlety, she at last said (after calling for a long time with many tears and mournful lamentations on the name of her husband Acerbas), that “she would go whither the fate of her city called her.” Taking three months for the accomplishment of her resolution, and having raised a funeral pile at the extremity of the city, she sacrificed many victims, as if she would appease the shade of her husband, and make her offerings to him before her marriage; and then, taking a sword, she ascended the pile, and, looking towards the people, said, that “she would go to her husband as they had desired her,” and put an end to her life with the sword.”
(Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus, XVIII, 4, 3–6, 7; translation by John Selby Watson, modified)
If we admit that the foundation legend transmitted by Justin was known to Timaeus, who probably obtained it from Carthaginian sources in Sicily, we might inquire about what lessons can be learned from this legend. First, we should question the motives which dictated the foundation of Carthage, since nothing could predict the fate of this new settlement, which was too close to the earlier foundation of Utica for her to obtain complete autonomy and too distant from the sea lanes normally followed by the Phoenician vessels along the North African coast, which could reach the western tip of Sicily without having to penetrate the Gulf of Tunis. We may thus suppose that for the founders it was not a question of establishing yet another transshipping point, or emporion, on the route between east and west but, rather, of laying the basis of a new social project and a new economic model, which would be of a different nature from the city-state model of the Phoenician coast (Tyre, Sidon, or Byblos)—all without denying its origins or ties to the motherland (the ties between Carthage and Tyre are attested until at least the Hellenistic period, according to the sources, as well as by epigraphy; see chapters 6 and 40, this volume). In fact, it might have been expected that Elissa and the aristocratic group responsible for the new foundation would have sought to replicate the monarchic system of their homeland. Yet it would seem that they opted right from inception for an oligarchic system, which appears to have been maintained throughout Carthaginian history, as no epigraphical evidence of kingship have been found, either in Carthage or in the Punic world (Sznycer 1978: 565).
Moreover, it is worth noting that the foundation myth, or at least the version that has come down to us via Justin, makes no further mention of the cult of Milqart (Melqart) after the flight of Elissa. Thus, we find no mention of the construction of a temple, as against what occurs in the foundation myth of Gadir (present-day Cádiz) (Strabo III, 5, 5; Justin XLIV, 5, 2). Furthermore, Justin’s narrative appears to give precedence to Jupiter (Iovis: a Baal, but which one?) or, rather, to Juno (Iunonis: Ashtart?), if we follow Servius (A, 1, 443), since one of her priests accompanied Elissa, with the assurance of maintaining the priesthood for himself and his descendants (Justin XVIII, 5, 2). Thus, this westward migration not only concerned a group of Tyrians and their poliad divinity but various groups and divinities who presided over the birth of the city (Baal? Ashtart? Milqart?). From an archaeological standpoint, a new religious landscape came to light through the development of the cult of Tinnit and Baal Hamon (attested but not salient divinities in the Levant) as well as the emergence of the tophets in which their cult appears particularly visible (on which see McCarty, chapter 21, this volume).
Finally, the first settlers of Carthage were far from ethnically homogeneous; the foundation myth itself indicates that the original group made up of Tyrians and Cypriots was joined by Africans. The fact that the local king Hiarbas asked for the hand of Elissa in marriage suggests that mixed marriages between Eastern settlers and Africans were usual (Mansel 1998). The material remains from the earliest habitation levels, the necropoleis, and the tophet (Chapelle Cintas) appear to confirm the cosmopolitan nature of the Carthaginian population. The very early presence of Western Euboeans who were already active in Utica (Ben Jerbania and Redissi 2014: 195) can even be affirmed (Briese 1998; Kourou 2002).
Early Settlement and Expansion
The new colony was established on an isthmus ideally placed between the gulfs of Tunis and Utica. Connected to the mainland by a strip of land a little less than 4.5 km wide, the territory could be easily defended. Two shallow coves, one to the north (the Sebkha of Ariana) and the other to the south (the lake of Tunis), allowed the craft to beach regardless of the wind direction. Finally, notwithstanding what was said in the foundation myth, it seems that the town was built on the coastal plain rather than on the hill known as Byrsa (Appian Lib, 1, 4), which could not have been used as an acropolis prior to the fifth century bce at the earliest, as it was used as a necropolis prior to that date (Morel 2010: 65–68; cf. also Lancel 1982).
Relatively soon after its foundation, during the course of the eighth century bce, Carthage established close contacts with Greek and Phoenician centers in the central Mediterranean, which we know of thanks to the archaeological data, filling the gap in the literary sources. On the island of Ischia, Pithecusae (/Pithekoussai), an Euboean settlement of the second quarter of the eighth century bce, welcomed a mixed population of Euboean and Levantine merchants, which most likely included Carthaginians (Docter and Niemeyer 1994: 110–12; Ridgway 1998: 305–10).
Despite the ongoing debate regarding the Carthaginian expansionist activity in early times, some literary evidence suggests that they targeted the western Phoenician colonies and their back country (e.g., Justin XLIV, 5, 1–3). It is perhaps from this perspective that we need to interpret the passage in Diodorus of Sicily (V, 16, 2–3), in which he attributes to Carthage the foundation of the colony of Ebesos (Phoenician’ybšm, the present-day town of Ibiza) in 654 bce. On the other hand, Carthage does not appear to have been active in Sicily during the seventh century bce, notwithstanding the westward expansion of Greek colonizers, which included the foundation of Himera in 648 (Thycid VI, 5, 1; Diod. Sic. XIII, 62, 4) and of Selinus in 628 bce (Thycid VI, 4, 2; Diod. Sic. XIII, 59, 4, dates this foundation a quarter of a century earlier). The famous passage in Thucydides (VI, 2, 6), who represents the Phoenician settlers as being on the defensive and retrenched in the three strongholds of Soluntum, Panormos, and Mozia, on the one hand, and the silence of the literary sources regarding possible conflicts, on the other, suggest that Carthage neither had the means nor the desire to become involved militarily in Sicily during this early period.
During the sixth century bce, the activity of the Carthaginians in Africa, Sardinia, Sicily, and the Tyrrhenian Sea finds an echo in literary sources through Justin’s late testimony; he mentions the military expeditions of a certain Malchus/Mazeus who appears to have lived at the time of Cyrus the Great (r. 559–529 bce), according to the even later Orosius (IV, 6, 9). At the head of his army, Malchus, whose historicity needs to be treated with caution, would have secured the Carthaginian domination over that part of Sicily where the Phoenician settlements were ever under pressure from the Greeks (the Knidian Pentathlos attempted to establish himself close to Lilybaeum ca. 580 bce, according to Diodorus of Sicily V, 9; Pausanias X, 11, 3–5). Malchus would appear to have also met with success against Africans, before crossing to Sardinia, wh
ere he was badly defeated, and for which he was banished (Justin XVIII, 7, 1–2).
This defeat probably illustrates more the difficulties encountered by the Carthaginians in mastering the hinterland and subjugating the local population than, as suggested, the attempt to take over the Phoenician colonies (Bernardini 2004: 38–39 and n16; see also Bondì 2016: 132, for a similar interpretation regarding western Sicily). As for the banishment of the defeated general, this alludes to the strong distrust of generals by the Carthaginian oligarchy, which resulted in the creation of a court the following century dedicated to the control of generals returning from campaigns (Justin XIX, 2, 5–6; contra, Maurin 1962: 6–9). Again according to Justin, it was the successor of Malchus, a certain Mago, founder of a dynasty of Carthaginian generals over a period of three generations, the so-called Magonids, who permitted the Carthaginians to increase their power and expand their territory (Justin XVIII, 19; XIX, 1, 1–3; XIX, 2, 1–4; HAAN I: 420–21; HAAN II: 186–87). These leaders were probably suffetes; the titles βασιλεύς and rex used in Greek and Latin, respectively, are the result of a misunderstanding of the Punic function (Sznycer 1978: 565–76).
It was around this same period that Carthage erupted on the historical scene as an autonomous power, in an attempt to contain the Greek expansion and protect its commercial activities and sources of raw materials. In about 565 bce, the Phocaeans fled the Persian pressure in Asia Minor and settled at Alalia (present-day Aléria) in Corsica, not far from Massalia (Marseilles), another Phocaean settlement. This new settlement subsisted primarily on piracy and rapidly proved menacing for the Carthaginians and especially their Etruscan allies. The confrontation took place ca. 540 bce off the coast of Alalia, opposing the Phocaeans of Corsica and Marseilles to the Carthaginian and Etruscan coalition. The outcome of this first major naval confrontation in the western Mediterranean is not clear, since the sources are at variance (Herodotus I, 165–67; Thucydides I, 13, 6; Pausanias X, 8, 6–7, and 18, 7; Justin XLIII, 5, 2), but it probably resulted in the Corsican site entering the Etruscan sphere of influence (Jehasse and Jehasse 1973, 2001).
The military alliance of the two naval powers in the western Mediterranean at the time was based on exchanges at the highest level, as attested by the spectacular discovery in 1964 of a text in Etruscan and Punic engraved on three small gold sheets. The inscription was discovered at the cult site of Pyrgi (present-day Santa Severa), one of the ports of the city of Cerveteri (ancient Caere). Dated ca. 500 bce or a little earlier, it commemorates the consecration of a shrine to Astarte-Uni by the king of Cerveteri Thefarie Velianas (Bellelli and Xella 2016). Etruscans and Carthaginians had entertained privileged relationships since at least the seventh century bce, as attested by the Etruscan bucchero pottery discovered in the Carthaginian tombs from the middle of the century. One of the earliest tombs of the necropolis known as “of Sainte-Monique” yielded an ivory plaque representing an ungulate and bearing an Etruscan inscription ca. middle of the sixth century bce. The shape of the object and the text, “mi puinel karθazie els ϕ[—]na,” indicate that it was a tessera hospitalis (figure 11.1), intended to demonstrate hospitality ties between a Carthaginian family and its Etruscan partners (Van Heems 2012: 160, 165–67; Maggiani 2006: 319–21).
Figure 11.1 Tessera hospitalis, Reverse with Etruscan inscription, Carthage, middle of the sixth century bce, Carthage Museum.
Source: AMVPPC-Samir Aounallah.
After the outcome of the battle of Alalia, the silence of the sources suggests an appeasement in the relations between the Punics and the Phocaeans. This did not prevent Carthage (and its allied autochthonous population) from jealously protecting its sphere of influence, including by impeding the Greeks from attempting to establish colonies. One such case is the failed colony of the Spartan Dorieus, at the end of the sixth century bce, who tried to settle at the mouth of the Kinyps (Wâdî Caàm, 19 km west of Lepcis Magna in modern Libya), and subsequently moved to the neighborhood of Mount Eryx in Sicily (Hdt. V, 42–46; Diod. Sic. IV, 23, 3).
Thus, at the end of the sixth century bce, under the oligarchic government dominated by the so-called Magonid family, Carthage appears to have succeeded in imposing its maritime control over more than half the western Mediterranean basin (the Ligurian Sea and the Gulf of Lion, however, would seem to have escaped this control), including the North African coast, Andalusia, the Balearic Islands, Sardinia, the western end of Sicily, and Malta. The terms of the first Romano-Carthaginian treaty, sworn in 509 bce, the year the Roman Republic was proclaimed, in any case acknowledge Carthaginian authority over Sardinia, the western third of Sicily, the African territory of Carthage and what is beyond Cape Bon (Polybius III, 22–23).
This picture might, however, suggest a total and uniform control of these territories, if we do not take into account the complexity of Carthage’s relations with Africa (hinterland, Emporia region) and the diversity within the Phoenician and Punic world. The different communities that composed it nurtured their own identities (through the mention of an ethnic in their anthroponyms, the worship of specific deities, the development of a particular iconographic repertoire, etc.), as well as cultural and trade networks that did not necessarily include Carthage. This explains the differences in the modalities and rhythm of the Carthaginian hegemony, as well as the setbacks suffered (Justin XIX, 1, 4–5 on the difficulties of the first Magonids against Africans).
Archaeological research has, however, shown real changes in the hinterland of Carthage, Sardinia, and western Sicily during the sixth century bce. Thus, added to the exploitation of the sandstone quarry of El Haouaria, attested in Carthage since the middle of the seventh century, the foundation of Kerkouane (presumably in the first half of the sixth) indicates that it was during that century that Carthage took control of Cape Bon (Morel 1969; Fantar 2002; Docter 2009). Research at Althiburos, deep in Numidian territory, indicates that the settlement was occupied from the tenth or ninth to the seventh century bce, after which there is a hiatus of almost a century. During the following phase, starting in the early sixth century, archaeologists noticed a shift in construction techniques and signs of Carthaginian influence, as evidenced by Phoenician red-slip sherds (Sanmarti et al. 2012: 30; Kallala et al. 2014: 133–34). By the end of the sixth century bce, the site of Monte Sirai in Sardinia, founded almost a century earlier by the Sulcitans in order to control the access to the hinterland, underwent a reorganization, visible on the acropolis, in the habitation area, and in the necropoleis (Guirguis 2012; Moscati et al. 1997). The cult site of Sid BBY, built during the same period at Antas, close to the iron-ore mines of Iglesiente, also attests to the Carthaginian penetration (Zucca 1989; Perra 1998: 173–76; Esposito 1999: 115–20; contra Bernardini 2004: 39–40). In Sicily, the site of Mozia underwent profound changes from the middle of the sixth century bce, when a fortification wall was built, and the tophet, as well as the cult site known as Capiddazzu were reorganized (Famà 2008: 47–48; Spanò Giammellaro 2000).
The lack of compelling evidence elsewhere in the western Phoenician world should lead us to nuance the nature of the authority imposed by Carthage over the region defined here. As a counterexample, in Malta it is difficult to see any disruption between the Phoenician and Carthaginian periods (Sagona 2015: 218).
The Battle of Himera (480 bce)
Justin reports that Hasdrubal (‘Azrabaal) and Hamilcar (‘Abdmilqart), the sons of Mago, had crossed over to Sardinia after unsuccessful campaigns in Africa. There, Hasdrubal was badly wounded and died, and Hamilcar took over command of the Carthaginian armies, which included responsibility for the Sicilian front (Justin XIX, 1, 6–9). In Justin, this Hamilcar is said to have been Mago’s son, but for Herodotus (VII, 165) he was the son of one Hanno. This divergence led historians to suggest that he was in fact Mago’s grandson (Lipiński 1992, s.v. “Hannon 1”; Geus 1994: 97), but another suggestion is that Justin would have mistakenly named Hasdrubal’s and Hamilcar’s father Mago, instead of Hanno, as indicated by Herodo
tus. Therefore, the Magonids dynasty should be substituted by that of the Hannonid (Devillers 2000).
The Oxford Handbook of the Phoenician and Punic Mediterranean Page 21