City of Carthage

Timeline

1. c. -814–-600Gulf of Carthage · TunisiaAccording to tradition, the Tyrian princess Dido (Elissa) built a city at the mouth of a North African gulf, opening inner and outer harbors and raising walls, making Carthage the pivot of Phoenician expansion into the western Mediterranean.
2. c. -500–-265City of Carthage · TunisiaCarthage controlled the trade of Sardinia, Corsica, the Balearic Islands, and the silver mines of southern Spain; the city's population grew, temples and public buildings abounded, an oligarchic senate and wealthy merchant families dominated politics, and its navy was the largest in the western Mediterranean.
3. -264–-146City of Carthage · TunisiaAcross the three Punic Wars Carthage repeatedly rose after defeat; during Hannibal's expedition to Italy the city still served as a logistical and fleet base. After the Third Punic War Roman forces besieged the city for three years, and after breaching it they razed the city and sowed it with salt, ending Carthage as an independent city-state.