There is very little to be seen of it to-day, for the city was destroyed by its enemies, and the stones were taken to build the present town of Tunis.
It was founded nearly 900 years before the time of Christ, and was for hundreds of years a powerful and prosperous country till 146 years before Christ, when it was conquered by the Romans, and the city was given over to the flames.
The city was at that time twelve miles round, and was defended by huge walls sixty feet high and thirty-three feet thick with rooms inside them. In the lower storey were stables for horses and elephants (of which there were 300), and the upper storey served as barracks for over 20,000 soldiers, who formed the garrison for defence of the city.
But very few of these soldiers were Carthaginians. The Carthaginian young men did not care about soldiering: they preferred to loaf about and do nothing but watch public games, and foreigners or poor men were hired to do the soldiering for the country.
The country was large and rich, and had many colonies oversea and plenty of ships.
It looked as though no enemy could ever arise to come and attack her.
But what seemed so unlikely actually happened in the end.
The Romans had no great fleet to speak of, but they had a fine army, and they meant business. They put their soldiers into crowded transports, and sailed across the short distance of ocean that lay between the two countries—not much farther than Hamburg in Germany is from Hull in Yorkshire.
Thus the country which, like Germany, had a fine, well-trained army, landed a force in Carthaginia, the country which, like Britain, had a great fleet and great colonies, but only a small army, and it smashed up the Carthaginians through their not Being Prepared for it.
Boar Hunting.
From Tunis one sees to the southward a mountain called Zaghouan. Though forty miles away it was from here that the Carthaginians got their water supply, and they conveyed it by a small canal, which they built all the way to Carthage.