Hi there, you're listening to the Hellenistic Age podcast.

Episode 40, Carthage, the forgotten Mediterranean Empire.

Thank you. Mediterranean Empire. Let there be no love between our peoples and no treaties.

Arise from my dead bones, oh my unknown avenger, and harry the race of Dardanus, with

fire and sword whenever our strength allows it.

I pray that we may stand opposed, shore against shore, sea against sea, and sword against sword.

Let there be war between the nations and between their sons forever.

So says Queen Dido of Carthage, in book four of the Latin epic, the Enneid, composed by the Roman poet Virgil in the late 1st century BC.

From these lines, spoken by a lovesick and vengeful Dido against Ennius, the Trojan refugee who would become the ancestor of the founders of Rome,

Virgil retroactively paints the monumental struggle between the Roman Republic and the

Phoenician city-state of Carthage as inevitable, over a century after the city was systematically

destroyed by Roman forces in 146 BC.

But for nearly 700 years, Carthage and its peoples would be a major player in the Central

and Western

Mediterranean, famous for their shipbuilding and navigation in pursuit of trade and colonization,

that would leave a mark in both their home of North Africa and the likes of Spain, Sicily,

and Sardinia.

In this episode, we are going to take a brief look at the early history of Carthage, along with

analysis of its institutions, so as to better understand the civilization that is often merely

seen as Rome's first great imperial rival.

As a brief aside, I wanted to mention that I created an Amazon book wish list page for the

podcast.

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