Thorough and well researched but not very involving history of Carthage. Carthage: a History is missing the human elements that bring ancient history to life – what did the inhabitants of Carthage eat, how did they dress, what did they talk about, etc. Of course, this isn’t really author Serge Lancel’s fault; thanks to Scipio Aemilianus and Augustus Caesar there’s not much left of Carthage but graveyards, building foundations and cisterns. Lancel does put to rest the myth that Carthage was leveled and plowed with salt after the 146 BCE capture by the Romans; the city was burned during the attack, all the survivors sold as slaves, and reoccupation was prohibited; however, the ruins were left intact and were a popular attraction for Roman tourists. The “plowed with salt” story apparently originated with British historian B.L. Hallward, who included it in the Cambridge Ancient History early in the 20th century. What really finished off the ruined city was the construction of a new town by Augustus, starting in 29 CE, which involved building an enormous platform surrounded by retaining walls and filled with Carthaginian rubble. A touch of irony: “Carthage” comes from Qart ḥadašt, Phoenician for “New City”.


Lancel spends a considerable amount of text on the quasi-mythological founding of Carthage, which made its way into Latin histories because of its association with Aeneas and the founding of Rome. There’s no archaeological evidence for the traditional 814 BCE date, although there’s tenuous material from 75 years later, more or less. Paradoxically, Phoenicians “colonized” the western Mediterranean much earlier than the central part; the Phoenician site at Cadiz in Spain (ancient Gades) and other sites in Spain and Morocco, appear to be occupied at least 300 years before Carthage. “Colonized” is in quotes here because the Phoenicians – and Carthaginians – tended to establish trading stations rather than colonies – there were warehouses, docks, temples, cemeteries, and houses but never attempts to move large populations from the parent cities to occupy the hinterlands. This, of course, later seriously handicapped Carthage in its wars with Greek colonies and Rome; Carthage had to depend on trade with native populations for food supplies and on mercenaries for armies. The native populations – Libyans, Sicilians, Sardinians, and Iberians – reacted with varying degrees of enthusiasm; after the Carthaginian defeat in the First Punic War mercenaries repatriated from Sicily staged a revolt over back pay that nearly captured the city (the victorious Romans actually supported Carthage against the mercenaries, possibly because they were more concerned with servile rebellions of their own than a rejuvenated Carthage); on the other hand during the Second Punic War Hannibal’s Iberian and Libyan troops were the most effective in his army. Most of the Carthaginian hinterland defected to the Romans during the Third Punic War, but there wasn’t much choice by then.


Up to the end of the First Punic War, much of Carthage’s military power was naval – the Carthaginians invented the quinquereme, which replaced the trireme as the dominant Mediterranean oared warship. Lancel doesn’t state if Carthaginian galleys had slave or free oarsmen – probably free, as slave rowers didn’t become popular until later. The Romans had little luck against Carthaginian warships until they captured a grounded quinquereme to use as a model, then introduced the corvus, a beaked boarding ramp that could be dropped on the deck of another ship and convert a ramming battle to a boarding one. Lancel also notes that while triremes had three oar banks, quadriremes and quinqueremes had only two, with a pair of rowers on each oar for a quadrireme and three and two for a quinquereme. One of the recovered archaeological features at Carthage is the military harbor, a huge circular excavation with radial docks for warships, and with a central artificial island that included a harbor master’s watchtower and another set of radial docks. The Carthaginians certainly had the capability to rebuild their navy after the First Punic War; however, oared warships require frequent “refueling” for the crews and the loss of bases in Sicily, Sardinia, and the Aeolian Islands made it impossible to carry a naval war to Italy – hence Hannibal had to head overland from Spain. The Carthaginian navy did manage a few raids on the Italian coast during the Second Punic War but there were no massive naval battles like those off Sicily during the First Punic War (the battle of Cape Ecnomus involved about 300,000 rowers and marines, total for both sides, making it probably the largest naval battle in history in terms of personnel involved).


As already mentioned, the archaeological remains don’t tell very much about Carthaginian daily life. What few house foundations remain show considerable attention to water supply and drainage; there were cisterns for rain water, and bath and/or shower rooms; drainage went through lined channels to a gravel- or potsherd-lined pit in the street, which Lancel calls a “soakaway”. The cisterns are often the only remaining evidence for houses, since they were left behind during the Roman demolition; sometimes house and building foundations – and what’s left of the massive city fortifications – can be identified by “negative traces”, where stone blocks were pulled out of the ground for new construction.


The Carthaginians were as religious as any other Semitic people, but had a reluctance to give their gods personal names – “Baal” means “Lord” and “Melqart” means “King of the City”. There were lots of “Baals”: Baal Shamin was “Lord of the Heavens” and Baal Magonim was “Lord of the Shields”. The principal Baal was Baal Hammon, although nobody is quite sure what “Hammon” means. It’s not clear from Lancel if the other Carthaginian deities – Eshmoun, Tanit, Astarte – were personal names or other descriptive terms. Almost all Carthaginian names incorporate a reference to a deity – “Hannibal” is “he who enjoys Baal’s favor”; “Hasdrubal” is “he who has Baal’s help”; “Hamilcar” is actually “Abdelmelqart” – “pledged to the service of Melqart”; and Sophonisba is actually “Çafonbaal” – “she who Baal has protected”. The study of Carthaginian history isn’t helped much by the fact that there were lots of Hannibals and Hasdrubals and so on and it’s difficult to keep track of which one is which without historical context.


The creepiest part of Carthaginian religion is, of course, child sacrifice. Much like Mesoamerican human sacrifice, history was written by the victors – who had an interest in presenting their opponents in the most unpleasant light possible. As the times became more politically correct, Aztec flaying alive and heart extraction and Carthaginian child immolation tended to be dismissed as Conquistador and Roman propaganda. Unfortunately, archaeological evidence supported the more pessimistic view in both cases. The Carthaginian tophet (tophet is a biblical Hebrew word; nobody knows what the Carthaginians called the place) contains numerous urns full of little cremated bones. Lancel gives a extensive but fairly neutral interpretation of what happened, based on detailed examination by archaeological teams:


While most sacrifices involved a single human victim, around 30% included more than one. Single victims were newborn or stillborn; if there was a second human victim it was usually 2 to 4 years old. The victim(s) were placed on a small pyre of highly resinous wood. Fasteners are usually found, implying they were clothed. There’s no direct evidence that they were alive; however, there’s no sign of struggle so if they were alive they were bound. A young animal was usually sacrificed nearly simultaneously – the remains are slightly less burnt than the human victim, suggesting it was not placed on the pyre until it was lit. At the end, the bones were scraped into a urn, often accompanied by a small animal – sparrow, mouse, frog or lizard – which shows little or no evidence of burning. A few beads or amulets were added, followed by a clay plug, and the urn was buried beneath a stela. The sacrifices continue well after the Romans prohibited the practice; if some of the early Church authors are reliable, well into the Christian era. Lancel does dismiss the myth that there was a god “Moloch” involved; this misunderstanding derives from molk, the Punic term for child sacrifice. Almost all the sacrifices were to Baal Hammon – identified with Saturn by the Romans and Kronos by the Greeks – the god that devoured his children. Apologists have argued that the tophet was only a specialized cemetery for stillborn or otherwise deceased children, but this requires stretching the archaeological evidence considerably. Adult Carthaginian dead were interred, not cremated; the cemeteries survived the Roman conquest and are the source for much of what is known about Carthaginian domestic life – assuming the grave goods represent ordinary items and not things specially prepared for the dead.


I learned quite a lot from Carthage – most of my previous knowledge was derived from Diodorus Siculus, Polybius, or Livy. However, I would like to find a work that does a little more interpretation of the archaeological and textual evidence. Good maps and archaeological drawings; extensively referenced but very few of the references are in English. ( )

Wonderful book. ( )