The word Carthage signifies New City, and the settlement was so named in all probability to distinguish it from Utica, founded 300 years before. 850 B.C. has been considered the latest possible date for the founding of the town, while many hold that it was settled as early as 1000 B.C. It matters little which is accepted, since the place was neither strong nor influential for many years after either date. Its citizens came originally from Tyre. The "New City" was built on what is now the Bay of Tunis, a little to the north-west of the present town of Tunis. Nothing, practically, is known of its early history. Kings ruled at first, but were later abolished. Polybius, a Greek historian, stated that he had seen a treaty made between Rome and Carthage as early as 509 B.C., by which the Carthaginians bound themselves not to injure any Latin city while the Romans were pledged not to interfere with Carthaginian markets in the western Mediterranean. Because of its fortunate position the city became very prosperous. The Greeks tried to divert some of its trade into their own channels, and later, Rome was its hated rival and continued to struggle with the city until she effected its downfall.
The River Jordan.
"From the time when the first adventurers from the Syrian coast entered the sheltered inlets of the African shore—a remote period, even before Saul was made king of Israel and while Priam sat on the throne of Troy—down to the seventh century of the Christian era, when the Arabs passed over it like a whirlwind, this land has been the battlefield where destinies of nations have been sealed, and where heroes and warriors have sought their last resting place. The myths that surround its earliest development and shed a halo of romance over the career of its primitive races are somewhat obscured by the sterner facts of later times—by wars innumerable, wars of invasion and local disturbances, succeeded by a long period of piracy and power insured, and finally by neglect, abandonment, and decay. The legend of Dido still hangs over Carthage hill. The spirit of Hannibal haunts the fateful Zanca, and the banks of the Midjerda hold in everlasting memory the story of Regulus and his affrighted array. The air is full of myths and old-world stories which faithfully represent the traditions of the country in its varying fortunes; and slight as may be their connection with events in prehistoric times, yet they serve as foundations for a historic superstructure of never-failing interest. The earliest records are fragmentary, but we learn that the library of the Carthaginians, written in Phœnician characters, was presented by the Romans, after the fall of Carthage, to one of the kings of Numidia; and that Sallust, as pro-consul of that province in the time of Julius Cæsar, borrowed largely from it while writing his history of the Jugarthine war.... There is little doubt, however, that most of the earliest records passed to Alexandria, which became the rival of Athens as a seat of learning. With the burning of its library by the fanatical Arabs in the seventh century many a link between the old world and the new was severed, and reliable information concerning the laws and traditions, and the manners and customs of a people, who were the fathers of navigation and the founders of commerce, was swept away."[2]
Phœnician commerce was facilitated by the establishment of many out-posts, and while none other reached such size and importance as Carthage, several controlled routes which were almost as valuable. No modern account of that vast commerce approaches the one written long ago by the prophet Ezekiel, when Tyre was, or had just been, at the zenith of her power.
"O thou that dwellest at the entry of the sea, which art the merchant of the people unto many isles, O Tyre, thou hast said: 'I am of perfect beauty.'
"Thy borders are in the midst of the seas, thy builders have perfected thy beauty. They have made all thy ship boards of fir trees of Senir: they have taken cedars from Lebanon to make masts for thee. Of the oaks of Bashan have they made thine oars; the company of the Ashurites have made thy benches of ivory, brought out of the isles of Chittim. Fine linen with broidered work from Egypt was that which thou spreadest forth to be thy sail; blue and purple from the isles of Elishah was that which covered thee.
"The inhabitants of Sidon and Arvad were thy mariners: thy wise men, O Tyre, that were in thee, were thy pilots.
"The ancients of Gabal and the wise men thereof were in thee thy calkers: all the ships of the sea with their mariners were in thee to occupy thy merchandise. They of Persia and of Lud and of Phut were in thine army, thy men of war: they hanged the shield and helmet in thee; they set forth thy comeliness....
"Tarshish was thy merchant by reason of all kinds of riches; with silver, iron, tin and lead, they traded in thy fairs.