Dr. Eve MacDonald

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1,045 appearances 3 recordings 1 series first heard Aug 2026 last heard 13 Sep

Dr. Eve MacDonald’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 3 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 2.

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The Ancients · The First Punic War · 13 Sep 2026 podcast

Motil was a foundation of the Phoenicians, probably in the 8th century BC, that becomes allied to the Carthaginians, but then gets destroyed in the late 4th, early 3rd century, in a rather epic siege between a Greek Syracusan tyrant and

And the Carthaginians sort of battling over the control of this island off of the island.

And it's classic Phoenician island, port city, just off of a larger island.

So it's been and it's in a bay, it's protected.

Um, so you can pull your ships into the bay, and it's an amazing place.

Uh it was walled, uh, highly developed urban infrastructure.

temples, absolutely spectacular city, but it is destroyed in a long siege by the Greek tyrant Dionysius.

And the interesting thing is is that it's never completely abandoned because there's uh seems to be a a sacred temple there to the god Baal, but

The Carthaginians move their center of operations to a new city.

And that's when Lilibaum, which is modern Marsala, is founded.

And so they're intricately connected.

So although Motia is is is still occupied at some level, main center for that southwestern part of Sicily moves to Lilibaum.

They've been there, and not only have they been there, is that from our very, very first treaty that we know of between the Carthaginians and the Romans that dates

Yes, to right to the sixth century to the very beginning of the Roman Republic.

Sicily is mentioned as Carthaginian allied territory automatically.

So yeah.

It's a very tricky subject, and I would hate to, you know, uh sort of leap too far one way or the other.

I would say it's fair to say for me that you wouldn't actually speak about a Carthaginian empire per se, probably until after the first Punic War.

I really think when we get to the Barkids and we

We get to Iberia and we get much more direct control that you really can say they have an empire of some sort in the time with Hannibal, with Hannibal's father.

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