𐤒𐤓𐤕𐤇𐤃𐤔𐤕
Qart-Hadasht
kart-ha-DASHT — "New City." What the Carthaginians called Carthage.
An evolving encyclopedia of ancient Carthage from its founding to its destruction in 146 BCE. Every claim is sourced, every confidence level made explicit, every gap in the record named.
What this is
Sourced, not summarized
Every factual claim is linked to the ancient and modern sources that support, qualify, or contradict it — with passage-level citations.
Honest about what we don't know
Claims are tagged attested, inferred, contested, or legendary. Open questions get their own pages — gaps in the record are part of the history.
Beyond the Roman frame
Most of what survives about Carthage was written by its enemies. This encyclopedia foregrounds Carthaginian self-understanding where the evidence allows.
Start here
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Third Sicilian War (Carthage and Agathocles)
311 BCEThe five-year conflict between Carthage and Agathocles of Syracuse, fought across Sicily and (uniquely) into Carthaginian Africa itself. Carthage opened the war strongly: Hamilcar son of Gisco defeated Agathocles at the Battle of the Himera...
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Agathocles' Invasion of Africa
310 BCEThe first foreign army ever to operate on Carthage's home territory. In August 310 BCE, besieged in Syracuse, defeated in the field, his treasury empty, Agathocles of Syracuse took the audacious step of loading approximately 14,000 troops o...
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First Punic War, Outbreak
264 BCEThe political crisis of 265–264 BCE that produced Rome's first overseas war and the first of the three Punic Wars. The trigger was the Mamertines, a band of Campanian mercenaries who had seized the Greek city of Messana in 288 BCE, appealin...
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Battle of Cannae
216 BCEThe most studied battle of antiquity and Hannibal's tactical masterpiece. Drawn south into Apulia by Hannibal's seizure of the Roman supply depot at Cannae, the Roman consuls Aemilius Paullus and Terentius Varro engaged with an army roughly...
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Battle of Zama
202 BCEThe decisive engagement of the Second Punic War. After Scipio's invasion of Africa forced Hannibal's recall from Italy, the two commanders met in open battle in Numidia in autumn 202 BCE. Scipio's reformed maniples opened lanes for Hannibal...
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Treaty of 201 BCE
201 BCEThe peace treaty that ended the Second Punic War. Negotiated in the months after Zama, the terms were dictated by Rome and ratified, by Polybius's account, through Hannibal's intervention against the war party in the Carthaginian senate. Ca...
People
- Lucius Aemilius Paullus
- Agathocles of Syracuse
- Appius Claudius Caudex
- Bomilcar · Bod-Milkat
- Hamilcar (son of Gisco) · ʿAbd-Melqart
- Hannibal Barca · Ḥannibaʿl
- Hasdrubal (Hannibal's cavalry commander) · ʿAzrubaʿl
- Hasdrubal Gisco · ʿAzrubaʿl
- Hiero II of Syracuse
- Gaius Laelius
- Mago Barca · Magon
- Maharbal · Maharbaʿl
- Masinissa
- Ophellas of Cyrene
- Scipio Africanus
- Gaius Terentius Varro
- Tychaeus
Sources
- Appian of Alexandria, Punica (Roman History, Book 8) · primary
- Aristotle, Politics, Book II.11 (the Carthaginian constitution) · primary
- María Eugenia Aubet, The Phoenicians and the West, Politics, Colonies and Trade (2nd ed.) · modern
- Pedro Barceló, The Perception of Carthage in Classical Greek Historiography · modern
- Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica (Library of History) · primary
- Erich S. Gruen, Rethinking the Other in Antiquity · modern
- Adrian Goldsworthy, The Fall of Carthage, The Punic Wars 265–146 BC · modern
- Hanno the Navigator (attrib.), Periplus of Hanno · primary
- Dexter Hoyos, The Carthaginians · modern
- Dexter Hoyos, Hannibal's Dynasty: Power and Politics in the Western Mediterranean, 247–183 BC · modern
- Dexter Hoyos, Unplanned Wars: The Origins of the First and Second Punic Wars · modern
- Werner Huss, Die Karthager · modern
- Marcus Junianus Justinus, Epitome of the Philippic Histories of Pompeius Trogus · primary
- Charles R. Krahmalkov, The Foundation of Carthage, 814 B.C.: The Douïmès Pendant Inscription · modern
- Serge Lancel, Carthage: A History · modern
- Titus Livius (Livy), Ab Urbe Condita · primary
- Eve MacDonald, Carthage: A New History · modern
- Eve MacDonald, Hannibal: A Hellenistic Life · modern
- Richard Miles, Carthage Must Be Destroyed: The Rise and Fall of an Ancient Civilization · modern
- Cornelius Nepos, De Viris Illustribus, Life of Hannibal · primary
- Gilbert Charles Picard and Colette Picard, Daily Life in Carthage at the Time of Hannibal · modern
- Gilbert Charles Picard and Colette Picard, The Life and Death of Carthage · modern
- Plutarch of Chaeronea, Parallel Lives (selected, Cato the Elder, Fabius Maximus, Marcellus, Aemilius Paullus) · primary
- Polybius of Megalopolis, Histories · primary
- Josephine Crawley Quinn, In Search of the Phoenicians · modern
- Maurice Sznycer, Carthage et la civilisation punique · modern
- B. H. Warmington, Carthage · modern