CARTHAGE (conjectural native name, the Phoenician Kereth-hadeshoth, new city, from which the Greek Karchidon, and the Roman Carthago are supposed to have been derived), the most famous city of Africa in antiquity, capital of a rich and powerful com mercial republic. It was situated on the north coast, not far from the modern Tunis. Ac cording to tradition, Dido, fleeing from Tyre, came to this country, where the inhabitants agreed to give her as much land as could be compassed by an ox-hide. Dido cut the hide into small thongs, with which she enclosed a large piece of land. Carthage was founded, according to Aristotle, 287 years later than Utica. Becker supposes it to have been a joint colony or factory, in the Anglo-Indian sense, of Tyre and Utica. The actual date of its foundation is much contested. The date com monly given is 878 a.c. The history of Car thage is usually divided into three periods. The first is the epoch of its gradual rise; the second that of the struggles with other states occa sioned by its extended power; the third that of its decline and fall. These epochs inter lock each other, and it is only as a matter of convenience that we can interpose exact divid ing dates between them. The first epoch has been extended as far as to 410 B.C. ; the sec ond limited to the period chiefly distinguished by wars with Greece, 401-265; the third is the period occupied with the Roman wars, and end ing with the fall of Carthage.
Carthage appears early to have been inde pendent of Tyre. There existed, however, a close relationship between them, due to affinity of race- and religion. This appears from various incidents in their history, as when the Tyrians refused to follow Cambyses in a contemplated attack on Carthage, and when Alexander, hav ing attacked Tyre, the women and children were sent to Carthage. There is no evidence that the government of Carthage was ever mon archical. She appears soon to have acquired an ascendency over the earlier Tyrian colonies, Utica, Tunis, Hippo, Leptis and Hadrumetum. This was probably gained without any effort as the result of her material prosperity. The rise of Carthage, then, may be attributed to the superiority of her site for commercial purposes, and the enterprise of her inhabitants. Her relations with the native populations, as is evident from her subsequent history, would always be those of a superior with inferior races. Some of. them were directly subject to Carthage, others contributed to her strength by recruiting her armies, although frequently in hostility with her. She established colonies for commercial purposes along the whole north ern coast of Africa, west of Cyrenaica, and these colonies enabled her to maintain and ex tend her influence over the native tribes. These colonies, together with most of the earlier Phmnician colonies subject to her, possessed little strength in themselves, and easily fell a prey to an invader; hence they were in the end a source of weakness, although it is not easy to see how her prosperity could have been attained without them. It is only after the north
of Africa has thus been placed at her com mand that Carthage appears formally on the stage of history. One of her earliest recorded contests is that with Cyrene, when the bound ary between the two states was fixed, to the advantage of Carthage, at the bottom of the Greater Syrtis, the Carthaginian envoys, ac cording to the traditional story, consenting to be buried on the spot. The immediate wants of the city were provided for by the cul tivation of the surrounding territory, which alone was directly dependent on her.
Commerce naturally led Carthage to con quest. The advantages, both for the promotion and protection of her trade, of possessing islands in the Mediterranean, led to her first enterprises. Expeditions to Sicily and Sar dinia appear to have been undertaken before the middle of the 6th century. The war was carried on in the latter half of this century by Mago and his sons Hasdrubal and Hamil car. At the same time a war arose with the Africans on account of the refusal of the Carthaginians to continue the payment of a ground-rent for their city. In this the Cartha ginians were unsuccessful, but at a subsequent period they achieved their object. Sardinia was their first conquest. They guarded it with the utmost jealousy. The Romans, by the first treaty 509 ac., were allowed to touch at it; but this permission was withdrawn in the second. It was the entrep6t of their trade with Europe, and lessened their dependence on their own territory for corn. They founded its cap ital, Caralis, now Cagliari. They soon after occupied Corsica, where they united with the Tyrrhenians, its previous possessors, against the Greeks. Sicily was already occupied by Greek and Phoenician colonies. The latter, on the decline of Tyre, seem to have fallen under the dominion of Carthage, which gave her a footing on the island. The Greeks were still the more powerful party, and the Carthaginians occupied themselves in promoting dissensions among their cities. When the Greeks were occupied with the Persian invasion, they organ ized a great expedition to take possession of the island, in which they landed 300,000 men, contributed by all their dependencies. Among these Sardinians, Corsicans and Ligurians, the latter from the gulfs of Lyons and Genoa, are enumerated. They were totally defeated by Gelon, tyrant of Syracuse, and their leader slain, in the battle of Himera, 480 a.c. The Balearic, and many smaller islands in the Med iterranean, had already been occupied by the Carthaginians. Spain had also been colonized by them with peaceable commercial settlements. No other great enterprise took place in the first period of her history.