Ancient Phoenicia & Carthage: Non-Political History (Notable Places, Groups, Concepts, Mythology, etc.)

Phoenicians (All Facts)

• Group of people who were a nation of traders living on the Eastern Mediterranean coast

• Were sailors and middle-men, they used warships to defend their large trading network

• Their ports, each one an independent city-state, are conveniently located, being

  • equi-distant from both Egypt and Mesopotamia

  • perfectly placed to cast out trade lines across the Mediterranean

• Traded as far as Spain from their economic bases

  • along the African and Sicilian coastlines

  • From Type and Cyprus to the Iberian peninsula

• Traded Copper from Spain and tin from Britain and Brittany for textiles and spices from the Orient

• In spite of the chaos by pirates from Corsica, Sardinia, and Sicily; they successfully established their independence and became powerful

  • Later on, however, many of its city-states were too jealous of their independence to unite against a common foe, and fell victims to the invasions of Mediterranean pirates and Asian settlers

• Famous for having been the first civilization in recorded history to have circumnavigated Africa, which occurred around the early 500’s BCE

  • As they rounded the southernmost point of the continent, the sailors noted how the sun rose on different side of the ship

Ugarit / Ras Shamara (All Facts)

• Ancient Phoenician City-State

• Was one of the most prosperous Levantine ports in Syria

• Manufactured and exported weapons and a variety of luxury metal objects, notably its renowned bronze vessels

• Served as a major port with access to major caravan trade routes

• Its scribes invented the Alphabet, more specifically the Phoenician Alphabet and developed multilingual skills in the process

  • Besides their own tongue, written in their invented cuneiform alphabet, they spoke foreign languages such as those in Babylon and the Hittite Empire, especially by 1350 BCE

Phoenician Alphabet (All Facts)

• System of writing comprised of signs, which arranged those signs as used in a specific language in an order that was always the same

• System which made it possibly to write down the local language, one of a number of Semitic tongues; thus making commercial transactions in the namesake civilization easier

• Represents a great advance over its Mesopotamia syllabic cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphics predecessors in that the namesake system of writing is created for the first time in the namesake civilization

  • Also, the number of signs within the namesake system was drastically reduced to 30 signs being used to write down the sound of the spoken language

• In Palestine, a linear script was being developed that does not make use of cuneiforms

  • Involved the scratching of curved or straight lines rather than using wedges

  • Was not restricted to writing in clay

Levantine Coast (All Facts)

• Term used to refer to the group of Phoenician cities along the East Mediterranean coast including Tyre and Sidon

• Ever since Phoenicians came to power, its city-states grew rich in trading tin, lead, copper, gold, textiles, and timber

Arwad (All Facts)

• Ancient Phoenician independent city-state

Sidon (All Facts)

• Ancient Phoenician independent city-state

Tyre (All Facts)

• Ancient Phoenician independent city-state situated on an island west of the Levantine coast

• Survived the invasions of Mediterranan pirates and Asian settlers, it was strengthened by refugees from neighboring Sidon

• Became the most powerful state in the Levantine region around 1200 BCE, ti contained two important seaports

• Dominated all the states of Phoenicia, having grown into a major trading and political power in Phoenicia

  • This was the case until it was crushed by the Assyrians and later captured in a 13-year siege by King Nebuchadnezzar II and the Babylonians

  • Until that point, its privileged location kept it well protected from invasion

Carthage (All Facts)

• City from which a new civilization and empire would soon emerge, it was founded in 814 BCE

  • Eventually overtook Tyre as the leading city of Phoenicia by 677 BCE

• Founded by Dido in 814 BCE, its name means “new capital” in their language

  • Shortly after this, it became a self-sufficient community, having cut ties with Tyre and having established satellites along the North African and Sicilian coasts, from where it controlled both the eastern and western Mediterranean

• Established itself as the major trading port of the Mediterranean by 677 BCE

  • Gold, slaves, ivory, and ostrich feathers came from across the desert to the south

  • Tin, copper, lead, and textiles came in from across the sea to the north

  • Its merchants sometimes crossed deserts and mountains to obtain their commodities

• Characterized by its famous ships, known in every port of the Mediterranean by 677 BCE, which by that point had sailed beyond the Pillars of Hercules into the Atlantic Ocean

Carthaginians (All Notes)

• Considered the most significant non-Greek, non-Roman state of ancient North Africa

• Developed on the northern coast of Tunisia, established by the Phoenician city-state of Tyre as a trading post on a well-protected harbor on that coast

• Founded by (Queen) Dido, a refugee queen from Tyre

  • Has a love affair with Aeneas but was abandoned by him

• Initially paid tribute to local Berber peoples to ensure the peace

  • However, they eventually stopped paying tribute to them

  • Thus, the Berbers were required to pay half of their produce in taxes and had few legal rights while other native peoples remained independent

• Established its independence from Tyre in 600 BCE

• Characterized by being the center of preservation of Phoenician culture, especially in the wake of the Babylonian and Persian invasions of Tyre

• Characterized by “Punic” - their version of the Phoenician language, eventually became the common language of the people

• Characterized by a constitution

Carthaginians (Economy)

• Became a rich and powerful trading city

• Established its own commercial empire

• Was the most prosperous city in the world at one point

• Its craftspeople used raw materials to create a wide range of manufactured goods

• One noteworthy item of trade were the famous North African horses, which appeared on its coinage

• These products could either be traded for cash in the Mediterranean world or used to acquire additional raw materials elsewhere

• Became the primary supplier for tin for the Mediterranean and Near Eastern worlds

• Created their own source of purple dye, worth 20x its weight in gold from Phoenician murex marine snails

• Their merchants traded internationally, including by land and by sea, where they traded with

  • Sub-Saharan Africa for various items

  • Arabia and India for spices

  • Tartessus and Celtiberians in Spain for silver

  • Britain for tin

  • Scandinavia and the Celts for furs and amber

  • Everywhere for slaves

• Utilized sophisticated agricultural techniques including

  • Iron ploughs

  • Crop rotation

  • Advanced irrigation methods

  • “Treatise on Agriculture”

• Asserted hegemony over coastal Phoenician colonies

  • Some remained independent allies of them

  • Some paid tribute but retained local autonomy

  • Some resented them entirely

  • All were expected to follow their foreign policies

• Focused their commercial efforts towards the western Mediterranean due to their fierce economic competitors to the East in Greece

Carthaginians (Warfare)

• Possessed a powerful navy of 300+ warships

• Their Navy

  • Used for protecting the homeland

  • Recruited natives

  • Provided a livelihood for the poor

• Their Army

  • Used for foreign wars

  • Recruited North African and Spanish mercenaries

  • Included several hundred African war elephants

• (~200 BCE) Unquestionably the strongest power in the western Mediterranean

Carthaginians (Government)

• Initially ruled by kings who were elected as war leaders by a “Gerousia” (Senate)

  • Members were chosen from the most wealthy and influential families

    • However, after the Battle of Himera (480 BCE), the monarchy was discredited and converted into a republic

      • This republic eventually became an oligarchy

• Powers apportioned in the new republic system included

  • 2 “Suffets” (“Judges”) that headed the government

  • “Council of 104” - members appointed for life that had oversight of the government and generals

• Popular assemblies had the right to make final decisions in cases where the Judges and Senate did not unanimously agree

• Citizenship was a prized possession and not readily extended to outsiders; citizens:

  • Worked in commerce

  • Were exempt from

    • Taxes

    • Military service

Carthaginians (Religion)

• Derived from Phoenician religion

• Worshipped Melqart, the chief God of Tyre whom they built temples for as far as Cadiz, Spain

  • Occasionally made large offerings to the Temple of Melqart in Tyre

• Pantheon:

  • Tanit - co-founder, fertility goddess

  • Baal Hammon - co-founder, creator god

• Practices

  • Child Sacrifice

    • Children were sacrificed to Baal and Tanit

    • Could be children that were cremated who died of natural causes and offered as such

  • Worshipped at the “Tophet”

Carthaginians (Military History)

• 540 BCE - 535 BCE - Battle of Alalia

  • Collaborated with the Etruscans to fend of the Greeks from coming to Sicily, making commerce less competitive

• 525 BCE - Avoided entanglement in the expansion of the Persian Empire when the Phoenicians declined to provide ships for a proposed Persian attack

• 480 BCE - Battle of Himera

  • Greek cities ally to defeat the king at the time, King Hamilcar

• 320 BCE - Were scared by ATG’s attempt to invade them, which fell short due to his early death

• Defeated a Spartan attempt to establish colonies in Africa

• Their campaigns in Sicily against Greece only wore them down, as they gained nothing and had disastrous consequences for their government

Dido (All Facts)

• She was the legendary founder of Carthage

• Also known as Elissa, she was a royal princess who left Tyre as it was being overtaken by the Assyrians, and sailed on an epic voyage

  • She sailed to the small Phoenician staging post on the North African coast, situated in the bottleneck between the eastern and western Mediterranean

  • There, she and her colonists established a settlement on a sandstone peninsula jutting into the sea, in which the site formed a natural harbor and thus was easy to defend

Hanno (All Facts)

• Carthaginian Explorer

• Claimed to have completed the greatest voyage of exploration yet undertaken by 500 BCE in which he headed a large fleet which he said had ventured with him beyond the Mediterranean to the Atlantic coast of Africa

• Claimed to have set sail with 60 ships with the intention of

  • exploring beyond the Pillars of Hercules (the Straits of Gibraltar)

  • founding new cities that would extend the growing trading empire of the Carthaginians

• Two days into his journey, he landed and founded his first city above a broad plain called Thymaterion

• During his journey, he established settlements at five points along a coast that varied from overgrown headland to reedy lagoon

• When he and his fleet arrived at the mouth of a large river, called the Lixos, he enlisted the help of Lixian nomads as guides and interpreters

  • Claimed that at one point in the journey, after sailing up a great river to a lake, he was surrounded by crocodiles and hippopotami and was confronted by savages clad in animal hides who threw stones and would not let them land

  • Purportedly failed to communicate with any natives, even while using Lixian interpreters

• Near the end of his journey, he pursued gorillas, however, the males escaped, but two females were killed and their skins were brought back to Carthage

Thymaterion (All Facts)

• City supposedly founded by Hanno of Carthage