Professor Josephine Quinn

That is what we all want to see.

It's right in the middle.

So ancient Carthage is in modern Tunisia.

It's actually now a sort of seaside suburb of modern Tunis.

Really lovely.

In fact, lots of great cafes there.

But it was originally founded as a colonial settlement in the 9th century BCE by people we now call Phoenicians.

And these are sailors who were based in the ports of the Levant, so modern Lebanon, more or less.

OK.

So cities like Tyre and Sidon and so on.

I mean, the archaeologists estimate it has about 30,000 people after about a century, which would make it an extremely massive city in the Western Mediterranean in that era.

It expands by controlling access to other ports in the Western Mediterranean and to the coastline.

It really kind of forbids other ports.

from sailing along any of the coastlines that are interesting to it.

And then later on in its history, it actually expands inland as well, becomes a sort of farming state into North Africa.

So by the 4th century BCE, so 500 years after it's founded, the Carthaginians control territory and trade across a huge swathe of North Africa, but also the islands of Sardinia, most of Sicily, and a lot of southern Spain as well.

So Carthage is an oligarchic republic.

So it's a bit like Rome.

It's got a public assembly, but it's mostly the people in charge are mostly from fairly ancient aristocratic families.

And that's Hannibal's background.