Ancient Carthage Timeline

Historian Hoyos claims that a reading of a late votive inscription as 'the hundred and twentieth year' implies that effective aristocratic rule was already established at Carthage by the late seventh century BC.

During the sixth century BC, Carthaginian generals became a distinct political office known in Punic as rb mhnt, or rab mahanet. Unique among rulers in antiquity, the suffetes had no power over the military.

According to historian Eve MacDonald, it was during the 6th century BC that Carthage's political system underwent major change, shifting away from monarchy toward oligarchic republican institutions.

A late 6th-century BC votive inscription from Carthage references Malchus with the line 'In the twentieth year of the rule of the Stufets in Carthage.' MacDonald stresses that both the inscription and Malchus's dramatic story point to a period when Carthage shifted away from monarchy toward an oligarchic republic.

While sometimes referred to as 'kings', by at least the late fifth century BC the sufetes were non-hereditary officials elected annually from among the wealthiest and most influential families; it is unknown how elections took place or who was eligible to serve.

Greek accounts describe a 'Sacred Band of Carthage' that fought in Sicily in the mid-fourth century BC, using the Hellenistic term for professional citizen-soldiers selected on the basis of merit and ability.

Image source: Sacred Band of Carthage

The most detailed information about the Carthaginian government comes from the Greek philosopher Aristotle, whose fourth-century BC treatise Politics discusses Carthage as its only non-Greek example, praising its balanced constitution.

Image source: Politics (Aristotle)

The reign of Mago I (c. 550–530 BC) marked an important period for Carthage. Since at least his reign in the early sixth century BC, Carthage regularly utilized its military to advance its commercial and strategic interests.

In the early fifth century BC, the Syracusan leader Hermocrates reportedly described Carthage as the richest city in the world; centuries later, even in its weakened state following the First Punic War, the 'universal view' was that Carthage was still 'the richest city in world'.

During the peak of its wealth and power in the fourth and third centuries BC, Carthage was among the largest metropolises in antiquity; its free male population alone may have numbered roughly 200,000 in 241 BC, excluding resident foreigners.

By the beginning of the fourth century BC, the Carthaginians had become the 'superior power' of the western Mediterranean, and would remain so for roughly the next three centuries.

By the third century BC, Carthage was the center of a sprawling network of colonies and client states spanning North Africa, Iberia, Sardinia, and other western Mediterranean territories.

Following centuries of conflict with the Sicilian Greeks, Carthage's growing competition with Rome culminated in the Punic Wars (264–146 BC), which saw some of the largest and most sophisticated battles in antiquity.

Image source: Punic Wars

The destruction of Carthage in 146 BC ended the Third Punic War and marked the fall of one of antiquity's greatest powers. All remnants of Carthaginian civilization came under Roman rule, and Rome became the dominant Mediterranean power, paving the way for the Roman Empire.

Image source: Third Punic War

Nearly a century after the fall of Carthage, Roman Carthage was built on the same site by Julius Caesar between 49 and 44 BC, reviving the city as a major Roman settlement in Africa.

Image source: Carthage

By the first century AD, Carthago had grown to be the second-largest city in the western Roman Empire, with a peak population of 500,000, surpassing even its ancient Punic-era prominence.

Two Roman emperors in the third century, Septimius Severus and his son and successor Caracalla, were of Libyan Berber descent and spoke Latin with a Punic accent, showing the enduring Punic heritage of Roman Africa.

Image source: Septimius Severus

In the fourth century, Augustine of Hippo, himself of Berber heritage, noted that Punic was still spoken in the region by people who identified as Kn'nm, or 'Chanani', as the Carthaginians had called themselves. He claimed the language was still spoken in his region in the fifth century.

Image source: Augustine of Hippo

Written over a century after the Third Punic War, Virgil's poem retools Carthage's founding myth to link it inextricably to Rome's: Aeneas chose Rome over Dido, eliciting her dying curse upon his Roman descendants, providing a mythical, fatalistic backdrop for the conflict between Rome and Carthage.

Image source: Aeneid

In the second century AD, the Roman historian Justin draws on the earlier work of Trogus to provide a modified account of the Pygmalion and Elissa founding story of Carthage.

Image source: Justin (historian)

Carthage features in Gustave Flaubert's historical novel Salammbô (1862), one of the most famous literary depictions of ancient Carthage and its culture.

Image source: Salammbô

Popular and scholarly attitudes towards Carthage historically reflected the prevailing Greco-Roman view, but archaeological research since the late 19th century has helped shed more light and nuance on Carthaginian civilization, revealing it as more complex than previously believed.