Carthage was founded by immigrants from the Phoenician city of Tire in the late IX century B.C. According to legend, the city was founded by the widow of a Phoenician king named Dido. She promised a local tribe to pay a gem for a piece of land, limited to the skin of a bull, but on condition that the choice of place was left to her. After the deal was concluded, the colonists chose a convenient place for the city, ringing it with narrow belts made from a single bull hide. In the first Spanish chronicle “Estoria de España”(1282 or 1284), prepared by King Alfonso X on the basis of Latin sources, reports that the word“ carthon ”in that language meant skin, and because she called the city Carthago”. In the same book are the details of the subsequent colonization.
The credibility of the legend is unknown, but it seems unlikely that without a favorable attitude of the Aborigines, a handful of settlers could gain a foothold in the territory allotted to it and found a city there. In addition, there is reason to believe that the settlers were representatives of a political party disagreeable in their homeland, and they hardly had to hope for the support of the metropolis. According to Herodotus, Justin and Ovid, soon after the founding of the city, relations between Carthage and the local population deteriorated. The leader of the tribe, under the threat of war, demanded the hand of Queen Dido, but she preferred death to marriage. The war, however, began and was not in favor of the Carthaginians. According to Ovid, the tribe even captured the city and held it for several years.
Judging by the objects found during archaeological excavations, at the beginning of its history, trade links connected Carthage with the metropolis, as well as Cyprus and Egypt.
In the VIII century B.C. The situation in the Mediterranean had changed a lot. Phoenicia was conquered by Assyria, and numerous colonies became independent. Assyrian rule caused a massive outflow of population from the ancient Phoenician cities to the colonies. Probably, the population of Carthage was replenished with refugees to such an extent that Carthage could, in turn, itself form colonies. The first Carthaginian colony in the Western Mediterranean was Ebess on the Pitiuz Islands (the first half of the 7th century B.C.).
At the turn of the VII and VI centuries B.C. Greek colonization began. In order to oppose the advancement of the Greeks, the Phoenician colonies began to unite into states. In Sicily – Panorm, Solunt, Motia in 580 B.C. successfully resisted the Greeks. In Spain, the union of cities, headed by Hades, fought with Tartess. But the basis of a single Phoenician state in the west was the union of Carthage and Utica.
The favorable geographical position allowed Carthage to become the largest city in the Western Mediterranean (population reached 500,000 ), to unite around itself the other Phoenician colonies in North Africa and Spain and to lead extensive conquests and colonization.
VI century BC.
In the 6th century, the Greeks founded the colony of Massalia and formed an alliance with Tartess. Initially, the Punians were defeated, but Magon I carried out a reform of the army (now mercenaries became the basis of the troops), an alliance was made with the Etruscans and in 537 B.C. after the sea battle of Alalia, the Greeks suffered heavy losses and were forced to leave Corsica. Soon Tartess was destroyed and all Phoenician cities of Spain were annexed.
The main source of wealth was trade – the Carthaginian merchants traded in Egypt, Italy, Spain, in the Black and Red Seas – and agriculture, based on the extensive use of slave labor. There was a strict regulation of trade – Carthage sought to monopolize trade; for this purpose, all subjects were obliged to trade only through the mediation of the Carthaginian merchants. This brought huge incomes, but it strongly hampered the development of subordinate territories and contributed to the growth of separatist sentiments. During the Greco-Persian Wars, Carthage was supposedly in alliance with Persia, and an attempt was made to seize Sicily with the Etruscans. But after the defeat in the battle of Gimera ( 480 B.C. ) from the coalition of the Greek city-states, the struggle was suspended for several decades. The main enemy of the Punians was Syracuse (by 400 B.C., this state was at the height of power and sought to open up trade in the west, completely captured by Carthage), the war continued at intervals of almost a hundred years (394–306 B.C.) and ended with the almost complete conquest of Sicily by the Punians.
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