2947 AM · 814 BCE · world history
The Founding of Carthage
Settlers from Tyre found a city on the African coast that will rule the western sea.
Legend says princess Elissa, fleeing Tyre, asked the local king for as much land as an ox hide would cover, then cut the hide into the thinnest possible strips. So arose Qart-Hadasht, the New City. Its double harbour, fleet and colonies made Carthage master of the western Mediterranean—and Rome's future rival.
Sources
Documents of the period
- Punic inscriptions and Carthaginian coinage — the city itself: the double harbour, the tophet and the inscriptions of Qart-Hadasht
Scholarship
- classical authors (Justin, Virgil) — the legend of Elissa and the oxhide
Basis: documents and evidence.