Carthage

Carthage

Carthage is a great ancient city on the northern coast of Africa, now a populated suburb of the city of Tunis. It was built on a prominent point on the Tunisian coast to control and monitor ships crossing the Mediterranean between Sicily and the North African coast. It quickly became a thriving port and trading center, and eventually grew into a major power in the Mediterranean and a rival to Rome. In 1979, the archaeological site of Carthage was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List. Legend has it that Carthage was founded by the Phoenicians of Tyre in 814 BC. Carthage was most likely not the earliest Phoenician settlement in the area, Utica may have preceded it by half a century, and there were different traditions about the founding of Carthage among the Greeks, who called the city Karchedon. The Roman tradition, though, is better known thanks to the Aeneid, which tells the story of how the city was founded by the Tyrian princess Dido, who was fleeing from her brother Pygmalion. The residents of Carthage were known to the Romans as the Poeni. This metropolis and its ports, an exceptional place for the mixing, spreading and flourishing of several successive cultures - Phoenico-Punic, Roman, Paleochristian and Arab - have generated a wide range of exchanges in the Mediterranean. The major known features of the Carthaginian site are the Acropolis of Byra, the Punic ports, the Punic tophet, the necropolises, the theatre, the amphitheatre, the circus, the residential area, the basilicas, the Antonin Baths, the Malaga cistern and the archaeological reserve.