page_title: History of Carthage
section_title: Mago and the Magonids
hierarchical_section_title: History of Carthage / Mago and the Magonids
caption_attribution_description: Español: As púnico de bronce acuñado en Gadir, la actual Cádiz (España). En el anverso muestra una cabeza masculina a izquierda, que representa a Melkart (llamado Hércules por los romanos); en el reverso, dos atunes a izquierda con varias letras fenicias. (fuente)
context_page_description: The city of Carthage was founded in the 9th century BC on the coast of Northwest Africa, in what is now Tunisia, as one of a number of Phoenician settlements in the western Mediterranean created to facilitate trade from the city of Tyre on the coast of what is now Lebanon. The name of both the city and the wider republic that grew out of it, Carthage developed into a significant trading empire throughout the Mediterranean. The date from which Carthage can be counted as an independent power cannot exactly be determined, and probably nothing distinguished Carthage from the other Phoenician colonies in Northwest Africa and the Mediterranean during 800–700 BC. By the end of the 7th century BC, Carthage was becoming one of the leading commercial centres of the West Mediterranean region. After a long conflict with the emerging Roman Republic, known as the Punic Wars, Rome finally destroyed Carthage in 146 BC. A Roman Carthage was established on the ruins of the first. Roman Carthage was eventually destroyed—its walls torn down, its water supply cut off, and its harbours made unusable—following its conquest by Arab invaders at the close of the 7th century.
context_section_description: Mago I, a general of the army, had assumed power in Carthage by 550 BC. Mago and his sons, Hasdrubal I and Hamilcar I, established the warlike tradition of Carthage by their successes in Africa, Sicily and Sardinia. In 546 BC, Phocaeans fleeing from a Persian invasion established Alalia in Corsica (Greeks had settled there since 562 BC), and began preying on Etruscan and Punic commerce. Between 540 and 535 BC, a Carthaginian-Etruscan alliance had expelled the Greeks from Corsica after the Battle of Alalia. The Etruscans took control of Corsica, Carthage concentrated on Sardinia, ensuring that no Greek presence would be established in the island. The defeat also ended the westward expansion of Greeks for all time.
  A war with Greek Massalia followed. Carthage lost battles but managed to safeguard Phoenician Iberia and close the Strait of Gibraltar to Greek shipping, while Massalians retained their Iberian colonies in Eastern Iberia above Cape Nao. Southern Iberia was closed to the Greeks. Carthaginians in support of the Phoenician colony Gades in Iberia, also brought about the collapse of Tartessos in Iberia by 530 BC, either by armed conflict or by cutting off Greek trade. Carthage also besieged and took over Gades at this time. The Persians had taken over Cyrene by this time, and Carthage may have been spared a trial of arms against the Persian Empire when the Phoenicians refused to lend ships to Cambyses in 525 BC for an African expedition. Carthage may have paid tribute irregularly to the Great King. It is not known if Carthage had any role in the Battle of Cumae in 524 BC, after which Etruscan power began to wane in Italy.
  Hasdrubal, the son of Mago, was elected as "king" eleven times, was granted a triumph four times (the only Carthaginian to receive this honour – there is no record of anyone else being given similar treatment by Carthage) and had died of his battle wounds received in Sardinia. Carthage had engaged in a 25-year struggle in Sardinia, where the natives may have received aid from Sybaris, then the richest city in Magna Graecia and an ally of the Phocaeans. The Carthaginians faced resistance from Nora and Sulci in Sardinia, while Carales and Tharros had submitted willingly to Carthaginian rule. Hasdrubal's war against the Libyans failed to stop the annual tribute payment.
  Carthaginians managed to defeat and drive away the colonization attempt near Leptis Magna in Libya by the Spartan prince Dorieus after a three-year war (514–511 BC). Dorieus was later defeated and killed at Eryx in Sicily in 510 BC while attempting to establish a foothold in Western Sicily. Hamilcar, either the brother or nephew (son of Hanno) of Hasdrubal, followed him to power in Carthage. Hamilcar had served with Hasdrubal in Sardinia and had managed to put down the revolt of Sardinians which had started in 509 BC.
caption: A Punic bronze coin from Gadir, modern Cádiz (Spain); the obverse shows a male head depicting Melkart (called Hercules by the Greeks and Heracles by the Romans); on the reverse are two tuna fish with several Phoenician letters.
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