- [i] Metadata - market:: [[rAskHistorians]] - [<] Status Log - created:: 2022-01-23 - status-updated:: 2022-02-05 - status-updated:: 2022-03-22 updated the metadata and linked references - [S] Marketing - purpose:: answer the following question for [[rAskHistorians]], which was used for [[Tt2021-05 On History]] and then spun out into [[Carthaginian Connections]] - [b] References - [[The Tyrants of Syracuse by Jeff Champion]] - [[Haegemans on Elissa of Carthage]] - [[The Phoenicians and the West by Maria Aubet]] - [[Wandering Dido by Josephine Quinn]] > The interactions between Carthage and Rome are (in)famous; everyone with more than passing interest in history has heard of the Punic wars, Hannibal, and the battle of Cannae. > > However, Alexander conquered Egypt over 100 years prior to the battle of Cannae. Ptolemaic Egypt would go on to play a pretty significant role in the waning years of the Roman Republic. Did Carthage have any interactions with Ptolemaic (or pre-Ptolemaic) Egypt, the Greek city-states or their Persian rivals, or the various other eastern Mediterranean cultures? > > Of course I'm interested in economic ties as well, but I would be quite shocked to find out that Carthaginian traders never visited Athens. So, perhaps political and/or military ties would be more interesting. ><div></div> ><cite>u/Ischaldirh</cite> I have in front of me _[[The Tyrants of Syracuse by Jeff Champion|Tyrants of Syracuse]]_ by Jeff Champion, _The Phoenicians and the West_ by Maria Eugenia Aubct, and have done a fair amount of digging into the historicity of Elissa of Carthage (aka the legendary [[Dido]]). I even wrote a review on Karen Hagemann's _[[Haegemans on Elissa of Carthage|Elissa, the First Queen of Carthage]], through Timaeus' eyes_ (available on [jstor](https://www.jstor.org/stable/44079812)) and talked to a couple of proper scholars (Deb Sneed, [[Cyprus Correspondence|Josephine Quinn and and Dimitrios Mantzilas]] about the topic, so I'm going to consider myself qualified enough to answer and if the mods disagree, whelp, sorry in advance. First: [[Phoenician|Carthage]] _definitely_ had interactions with the [[Greek]] city-states. I'm only familiar with the examples in Sicily, but both Carthage and the Greeks maintained colonies in Sicily and tensions between the two groups were really high. Greek writers at the time were prone to calling the Carthaginians all sorts of nasty names for doing things during the war that, quite frankly, the Greeks themselves were known to do. The summary of _[[The Tyrants of Syracuse by Jeff Champion]]_ gives a pretty good overview and has a lot of keywords you could follow up on if you're interested, so I'm going to quote it here: > Situated at the heart of the Mediterranean, Syracuse was caught in the middle as Carthage, Pyrrhus of Epirus, Athens, and then Rome battled to gain control of Sicily. \[...\] Jeff Champion traces the course of Syracuse's wars under the tyrants from the Battle of Himera (480 BC) against the Carthaginians down to the death of Dionysius I (367 BC), whose reign proved to be the high tide of the city's power and influence. One of the highlights along the way is the city's heroic resistance to, and eventual decisive defeat of, the Athenian expeditionary force that besieged them for over two years (415-413BC), an event with massive ramifications for the Greek world. In terms of Egypt, Aubct makes the point that people are prone to separating out Punic history, Carthaginian history, Phoenician history, and Caananite history in a way that is probably not terribly authentic to the realities of how the culture and politics of this group of people are interconnected through time. If we're comfortable calling Cleopatra "Egyptian" and Byzantium the "Eastern Roman Empire," then Aubct basically argues that in a very real way, the mere fact that Carthage overtook Tyre and the other Phoenician city-states (which are inextricably linked to the Caananites, here's a great thread from a [[2021-01-11|couple of days ago]] you may find interesting, about [why Phoenicia was considered the "land of milk and honey" by the ancient Israelites](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/kuxui4/what_makes_milk_and_honey_so_special_in_abrahamic/)) in terms of prestige doesn't mean that it wasn't a natural continuation of their leadership. That's a bit of a digression, but the main point I'm trying to make is that in answer to your question about whether Carthage had any connection to the various Eastern Mediterranean Cultures, the answer is _definitely._ Carthage's early years, before it became the ascendant Phoenician city-state, saw it acting as essentially just one more Tyrian colony; they definitely would have traded heavily with the mother city and its trading partners. At the risk of tooting my own horn (and I do hope this is allowed), I once wrote an [article](https://eleanorkonik.com/maritime-empires-phoenician-gap/) on what I like to call "the Phoenician gap" that provides some insight into why American schoolchildren don't learn about Phoenicia (tldr; a combination of "we avoid talking about Biblical history as much as humanly possible" and "Phoenicia isn't one of our intellectual forebears") and also has this handy [map](https://i0.wp.com/eleanorkonik.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/phoenicia-map.gif?resize=768%2C347&ssl=1) showing Carthaginian trade routes. Juxtaposed against the more "traditional" Greek & Roman trade routes that most textbooks have, it's a really nice visual of how North Africa wasn't actually a barren wasteland for trade, which is a particular pet peeve of mine. My understanding is that Tyre definitely traded red/purple dye, simple foodstuffs like, well, milk and honey, and _especially_ shipbuilding timber from the cedar forests of the Levant with Egypt. I'm not positive whether Carthage itself traded extensively with Egypt, but they were certainly part of the same trading _networks._ [Ancient.eu](https://ancient.eu/) has a nice article about Carthaginian Trade that you might also find interesting, and will hopefully round out this answer: > Carthaginian merchants, of course, also traded with contemporary powers in Greece, Egypt, Phoenicia, and the Hellenistic Kingdoms. Carthage signed treaties with other states to agree on areas of exclusive operation, notably with the Etruscans and with Rome c. 509 BCE and 348 BCE. Carthaginian traders were a common sight at the great markets of Athens, Delos, and Syracuse, sometimes having permanent quarters in the great cities of the day such as the Vicus Africus area of Rome. Punic amphorae have been discovered as far afield as Massilia (Marseille), Corsica, and Rome. I hope this answers your question: if not let me know and I'll try to do a little more digging.