Carthage

Origins and formation

Ancient Carthage began as a small settlement in present-day Tunisia and became the Carthaginian Empire, a major power over the western Mediterranean. The name’s literal sense is given as “New City.” It was settled around 814 BC by merchants from Tyre, in present-day Lebanon. In the seventh century BC, after the Neo-Assyrian conquest of Phoenicia, Carthage became independent of its eastern neighbors. Naval power then grew a patchwork of colonies, vassals, and satellites until Carthage was the economic and political hegemon of the western sea. By 300 BC it held the coast of northwestern Africa, southern and eastern Iberia, and Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, Malta, and the Balearic Islands. The guide calls this a rise from a humble colony to an economic hegemony, with ships carrying wealth and a home famous for craft and farming. The dates and the Tyrian origin are the history page. The ships are the guide’s picture of the same sea.^{[1] [3]}

Defining periods

The Punic Wars run, on the Carthage page’s own headings, from 264 to 146 BC: a first war, a mercenary war, a second war, and a third. The Third Punic War, 149–146 BC, was fought entirely in Carthaginian territory, in what is now northern Tunisia. The peace of 201 BC had forbidden Carthage to make war without Rome’s permission. Masinissa of Numidia used that clause to raid and seize land. In 149 BC Carthage sent an army against him anyway. The campaign failed. Later that year a Roman army landed at Utica. Carthage surrendered its weapons and Rome besieged the city anyway. The Carthage page states the end in one sentence: the city was destroyed by the Romans in 146 BC after the Third Punic War, and the Romans later founded a new city in its place. The guide says the wars with Greece and then Rome produced famous generals and a navy, and that war ended in destruction in 146 BC. The Greek rivalry is the guide’s earlier clause. The destruction date is shared.^{[1] [2] [3]}

The published Rome essay is that republic and its later memory, not this city. Carthage is the other shore. A link does not make Byrsa a Roman hill or turn 146 BC into the end of Rome.^[1]

The western hegemony was not a single coastline. By 300 BC the holdings already included Iberia and the large islands, while Tripoli stayed effectively autonomous under local Libyco-Phoenicians who paid only nominal tribute. That patchwork is why a game rule of one city, repeated in later ages, cannot be read backward as the shape of the empire at its height. The city of Carthage was the center. The empire was the network. When the third war confined the fighting to northern Tunisia, the network had already been reduced to the homeland the peace of 201 BC had left exposed to Numidia. The siege came after the weapons were surrendered. Destruction followed the siege. A duplicated settler does not retell that order.^{[1] [2]}

Legacy and interpretation

The legacy is a destroyed city and a Roman foundation on the same ground. Hegemony by 300 BC and ruin in 146 BC are both in the file. The guide’s ability, in the antiquity age and again later, allows only one city and stops towns from converting into cities. One historical metropolis is not a rule that every later age may have only one city. The restriction is a design that borrows the fame of a single great port. It is not the colonial patchwork of 300 BC, which was many coasts, not one town.^{[1] [3]}

Numidian cavalry is the guide’s military unit, and Numidia is in the third-war page as Rome’s ally under Masinissa, raiding Carthage. The unit can be read as that neighbor’s horsemen in Carthaginian service or as the enemy. The pages used here do not settle the uniform. They do say Numidia was not Carthage.^{[2] [3]}

A closer look

Byrsa is the guide’s wonder, a citadel name tied to gold and to trade routes that cannot be plundered. The history pages used here do not describe that immunity. They describe a port that was besieged and a city that was destroyed. A wonder that saves trade routes is the opposite of 146 BC. The cothon and the dock are the guide’s water buildings. A cothon is a famous Carthaginian harbor type. This essay does not invent its dimensions. It records the name.^{[2] [3]}

The colonist replaces the settler and is stronger when embarked. The second merchant or colonist on every purchase is the ability’s doubling. Two units are a rule. The Tyrian merchants of about 814 BC are one settlement story, not a duplicated unit. Independence from Tyre in the seventh century is a political break inside that story. It is not a second free settler.^{[1] [3]}

In Civilization VII

The English guide names the ability Phoenician Heritage, the quarter Punic Port, the buildings Cothon and Dockyard, the civilian Colonist, the military unit Numidian Cavalry, and the wonder Byrsa. The simplified Chinese guide names the same slots in its own words. The page’s apex age is Antiquity, which is the codex age used in the catalog. The page adds Carthage as part of the paid Crossroads of the World Collection. Yields and purchase costs stay on the guide.^{[3] [4]}

The accessed page states that collection, including its presence in some higher editions and its separate sale if the base game is owned. It does not call Carthage base-game content. The published Rome essay is the other combatant of the Punic Wars, not this city’s founding. The first step back from the single-city rule is to keep about 814 BC, the hegemon of 300 BC, and the destruction of 146 BC in that order.^{[1] [2] [3]}