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Phoenician Colonies
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_Phoenician Settlements Outside the Motherland_

_North Africa and Spain_

The Mediterranean and North African coast (with the exception of
Cyrenaica) entered the mainstream of Mediterranean history with the
arrival in the 1st millennium BC of Phoenician traders, mainly from
Tyre and Sidon in the eastern Mediterranean. The Phoenicians were
not looking for land to settle but for anchorages and staging
points on the trade route from Phoenicia to Spain, a source of
silver and tin. Points on an alternative route by way of Sicily,
Sardinia, and the Balearic Islands also were occupied. The
Phoenicians lacked the manpower and the need to found large
colonies as the Greeks did, and few of their settlements grew to
any size. The sites chosen were generally offshore islands or
easily defensible promontories with sheltered beaches on which
ships could be drawn up. [1]Carthage -- [2]Cartagine in italiano
--(from the Phoenician Kart-Hadasht, New City or Land), destined to
be the largest Phoenician colony and in the end an imperial power,
conformed to the pattern.

Tradition dated the foundation of _Gades_ (modern Cádiz; the
earliest known Phoenician trading post in Spain) to 1110 BC, _Utica_
(Utique) to 1101 BC, and Carthage to 814 BC. The dates appear
legendary, and no Phoenician object earlier than the 8th century BC
has yet been found in the west. At _Carthage_ some Greek objects
have been found, datable to about 750 or slightly later, which
comes within two generations of the traditional date. Little can be
learned from the romantic legends about the arrival of the
Phoenicians at Carthage transmitted by Greco-Roman sources. Though
individual voyages doubtless took place earlier, the establishment
of permanent posts is unlikely to have taken place before 800 BC,
antedating the parallel movement of Greeks to Sicily and southern
Italy.

Material evidence of Phoenician occupation in the 8th century BC
comes from Utica, and of the 7th or 6th century BC from _Hadrumetum_
(Susah, Sousse), _Tipasa_ (east of Cherchell), _Siga_ (Rachgoun),
_Lixus_, and _Mogador_ (Essaouira), the last being the most distant
Phoenician settlement so far known. Finds of similar age have been
made at Motya (Mozia) in Sicily, _Nora_ (Nurri), _Sulcis_, and
_Tharros_ (San Giovanni di Sinis) in Sardinia, and Cádiz and
_Almuñécar_ in Spain. Unlike the Greek settlements, however, those
of the Phoenicians long remained politically dependent on their
homeland, and only a few were situated where the hinterland had the
potential for development. The emergence of Carthage as an
independent power, leading to the creation of an empire based on
the secure possession of the North African coast, resulted less
from the weakening of Tyre, the chief city of Phoenicia, by the
Babylonians than from growing pressure from the Greeks in the
western Mediterranean; in 580 BC some Greek cities in Sicily
attempted to drive the Phoenicians from Motya and Panormus
(Palermo) in the west of the island. The Carthaginians feared that
if the Greeks won the whole of Sicily they would move on to
Sardinia and beyond, isolating the Phoenicians in North Africa. The
successful defense of Sicily was followed by attempts to strengthen
limited footholds in Sardinia; a fortress at Monte Sirai is the
oldest Phoenician military building in the west. _The threat from
the Greeks receded when Carthage, in alliance with Etruscan cities,
backed the Phoenicians of Corsica in about 540 BC and succeeded in
excluding the Greeks from contact with southern Spain._

Venerable historical traditions recount the Phoenician voyages to
found new cities. Utica, on the Tunisian coast of North Africa, was
reputedly founded in 1178 BC, and by 1100 BC the Phoenician city of
Tyre supposedly had a Spanish colony at Gadir (Cadiz). Although
intriguing, these historical traditions are unsupported by
evidence. Excavations confirm that the Phoenicians settled in
southern Spain after 800 BC. Their search for new commodities led
them ever farther westward and was the reason for their interest in
southern Spain's mineral wealth. The untapped lodes of silver and
alluvial deposits of tin and gold provided essential raw materials
with which to meet the increasing Assyrian demands for tribute. By
700 BC silver exported from the Río Tinto mines was so abundant
that it depressed the value of silver bullion in the Assyrian
world. This is the background for Phoenician interest in the far
west.

_Phoenician commerce was conducted by family firms of shipowners
and manufacturers who had their base in Tyre or Byblos and placed
their representatives abroad._ This accounts for the rich tombs of
Phoenician pattern found at Almuñécar, Trayamar, and Villaricos,
equipped with metropolitan goods such as alabaster wine jars,
imported Greek pottery, and delicate gold jewelery. Maritime bases
from the Balearic Islands (Ibiza) to Cadiz on the Atlantic were set
up to sustain commerce in salted fish, dyes, and textiles. Early
Phoenician settlements are known from Morro de Mezquitilla,
Toscanos, and Guadalhorce and shrines from Gorham's Cave in
Gibraltar and the Temple of Melqart on the island of Sancti Petri
near Cadiz. After the fall of Tyre to the Babylonians in 573 BC and
the subjugation of Phoenicia, the early prosperity faded until the
4th century. Many colonies survived, however, and _Abdera_ (Adra),
_Baria_ (Villaricos), _Carmona_ (Carmo), _Gadir_ (Cadiz), _Malaca_
(Málaga), and _Sexi_ (Almuñécar) thrived under the trading system
established by Carthage for the central and western Mediterranean.
Eivissa (Ibiza) became a major Carthaginian colony, and the island
produced dye, salt, fish sauce, and wool. A shrine with offerings
to the goddess Tanit was established in the cave at Es Cuyram, and
the Balearic Islands entered Eivissa's commercial orbit after 400
BC. In 237 BC, just before the Second Punic War, Carthage launched
its conquest of southern Spain under Hamilcar Barca, founded a new
capital city at Cartago Nova (Cartagena) in 228 BC, and suffered
crushing defeat by the Romans in 206 BC.

_The Colonies, Phoenicia's Diaspora_

Among the most outstanding colonies or trading posts which the
Phoenicians had established were the cities of _Genoa_, where they
went in with the Celts and established a flourishing colony, and
_Marseille_ which they started as nothing more than a trading post
before it became fully Hellenized.

It is very probable that the tremendous colonial activity of the
Phoenicians and Carthaginians was stimulated in the 8th to 6th
centuries BC by the military blows that were wrecking the trade of
the Phoenician homeland in the Levant. Also, competition with the
synchronous Greek colonization of the western Mediterranean cannot
be ignored as a contributing factor.

The earliest site outside the Phoenician homeland known to possess
important aspects of Phoenician culture is Ugarit (Ras Shamra),
about six miles north of Latakia. The site was already occupied
before the 4th millennium BC, but the Phoenicians only became
prominent there around 1991-1786 BC.

According to Herodotus, the coast of Libya along the sea which
washes it to the north, throughout its entire length from Egypt to
Cape Soloeis, which is its furthest point, is inhabited by Libyans
of many distinct tribes who possess the whole tract except certain
portions which belong to the Phoenicians and the Greeks.

Tyre's first colony, _Utica_ in North Africa, was founded perhaps
as early as the 10th century BC. It is likely that the expansion of
the Phoenicians at the beginning of the 1st millennium BC is to be
connected with the alliance of Hiram of Tyre with Solomon of Israel
in the second half of the 10th century BC. In the following
century, Phoenician presence in the north is shown by inscriptions
at _Samal (Zincirli Hüyük) in eastern Cilicia_, and in the 8th
century at _Karatepe in the Taurus Mountains,_ but there is no
evidence of direct colonization. Both these cities acted as
fortresses commanding the routes through the mountains to the
mineral and other wealth of Anatolia.

_Cyprus_ had Phoenician settlements by the 9th century BC. Citium,
known to the Greeks as Kition (biblical Kittim), in the southeast
corner of the island, became the principal colony of the
Phoenicians in Cyprus. Elsewhere in the Mediterranean, several
smaller settlements were planted as stepping-stones along the route
to Spain and its mineral wealth in silver and copper: at _Malta_,
early remains go back to the 7th century BC, and at _Sulcis and
Nora in Sardinia and Motya in Sicily_, perhaps a century earlier.
According to Thucydides, the Phoenicians controlled a large part of
the island but withdrew to the northwest corner under pressure from
the Greeks. Modern scholars, however, disbelieve this and contend
that the Phoenicians arrived only after the Greeks were
established.

In North Africa the next site colonized after Utica was _Carthage_
(near Tunis). Carthage in turn seems to have established (or, in
some cases, reestablished) a number of settlements in Tunisia,
Algeria, Morocco, the Balearic Islands, and southern Spain,
eventually making this city the acknowledged leader of the western
Phoenicians.

_Carthage_

Phoenician KART-HADASHT, Latin CARTHAGO, great city of antiquity,
traditionally founded on the north coast of Africa by the
Phoenicians of Tyre in 814 BC. It is now a residential suburb of
the city of Tunis. Its Phoenician name means New Town or Land.

A brief treatment of ancient Carthage follows. For full treatment,
see North Africa: History.

Various traditions concerning the foundation of Carthage were
current among the Greeks, who called the city Karchedon; but the
Roman tradition is better known because of the _Aeneid_, which
tells of the city's foundation by the Tyrian princess Elissar or
Elyssa (Dido in Greek), who fled from her brother Pygmalion (the
name of a historical king of Tyre who ruled a century after Hiram).
The inhabitants were known to the Romans as Poeni, a derivation
from the word Phoenikes (Phoenicians), from which the adjective
Punic is derived. According the Greek historian Timaeus (c. 356-260
B.C.), Carthage was founded in 814 B.C. by a Elyssa who gathered up
the royal treasury and a group of supporters and traveled to
Cyprus, another Phoenician colony. Thereafter she traveled to North
Africa where present day country of Tunis is.

The site chosen for Carthage in the centre of the shore of the Gulf
of Tunis was ideal: the city was built on a triangular peninsula
covered with low hills and backed by the Lake of Tunis with its
safe anchorage and abundant supplies of fish. The site of the city
was well protected and easily defensible. On the south the
peninsula is connected to the mainland by a narrow strip of land.
The ancient citadel, the Byrsa, was on a low hill overlooking the
sea. It is said, the local Berber permitted Elyssa and her people
to have as much land at that which could be covered with a single
oxhide. Hence, she was supposed to have cut an oxhide into thin
strips and encircled the hill. Some of the earliest tombs have been
found there, though nothing remains of Carthage's domestic and
public buildings. Byrsa means fortress in Phoenician. Byrsa in
Greek and Latin mean hide from which bourse or stock-market, and
purse are derived.

The standard of cultural life enjoyed by the Carthaginians was
probably far below that of the larger cities of the classical
world. Punic interests were turned toward commerce. In Roman times
Punic beds, cushions, and mattresses were regarded as luxuries, and
Punic joinery and furniture were copied. Much of the revenue of
Carthage came from its exploitation of the silver mines of North
Africa and southern Spain, begun as early as 800 BC.

From the middle of the 3rd century to the middle of the 2nd century
BC, Carthage was engaged in a series of wars with Rome called the
[3]Punic Wars. These wars, which are known as the Punic Wars, ended
in the complete defeat of Carthage by Rome. When Carthage finally
fell in 146 BC, the site was plundered and burned, and all human
habitation there was forbidden.

_Around Memphis_

Phoenicians from the city of Tyre dwell all round memphis, and the
whole place is known by the name of "the camp of the Tyrians."
Within the enclosure stands a temple, which is called that of Venus
the Stranger.

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References

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