Carthage: A History

This history of Carthage follows the city from its Phoenician foundation on the Tunisian coast through its growth as a trading and naval power in the western Mediterranean, its wars with the Greeks of Sicily, and the three Punic Wars with Rome that end in the destruction of 146 BCE. Lancel, writing as an archaeologist as well as a historian, sets literary sources such as Polybius beside excavation of harbours, tophet, and housing. A closing section treats the Roman colony later built on the site. The book is a scholarly reconstruction of a state known mostly through its enemies, not a novel of Hannibal alone.

Bound in buckram, blocked with a design by Neil Gower. Brown slipcase.