I've got a little time to respond now, so I may as well, seeming how the conversation still seems to be going on. After this though, I see little point in continuing to argue with all of you, it seems like, as I've done a shitty job in trying to explain my view, and everyone has moved on.
Again, the point of the paragraph you're replying to is not about distance, it's about motivation.
Distance IS a motivation for people; my point was that East Africa is the nearest "available" area for the Arabs to colonize, whereas the Carthaginians have plenty of much closer "available" areas to colonize, so such settlements aren't quite as incredible as what you're implying. Carthage has colonies in Sicily, North Africa, and Iberia that provide many of the same advantages (as far as I can tell) that South Africa does, that are far closer. Are these South African resources really so great and unique to make Carthaginians want to go to the opposite side of the continent, in a risky voyage, that will take much longer than most any voyages their merchants travel, when, if they really want to colonize somewhere, they've got plenty of nearby regions that would take a couple weeks or so to get to?
Specifically, it's about the motivation for a seafaring civilization to set up colonies in an unfamiliar, unmapped land with no written history or previous urban settlements to attract them. People keep harping about the lack of economic motive for Carthaginian settlers to set up camp in such a remote environment, but South Arabians were doing so around roughly the same time, no doubt inspired by the rich natural resources that can be had in Sub-Saharan Africa that might also lure Carthaginians.
That motivation for a colonizing power to colonize the unknown is dramatically less when there is known land that they can colonize nearby. My argument wasn't ever simply that unknown lands were off limits for colonizing powers - otherwise, most colonization anywhere doesn't make sense. However, when you have the Carthaginians already colonizing Sicily, Sardinia, North Africa, Spain, etc., it doesn't particularly make more sense for them (or at least I don't particularly see how) for the Carthaginian Maliks or Suffetes, city leaders and rich merchants, crazy guys with maps, etc., to colonize southern Africa, when they can't know much about it compared to their current colonies, and when making distance a factor. Again, if they really needed to get away, Britain, or even Senegal, are plenty far away. And, with them already being able to trade with the Arabs in Carthage and via mixed land/sea routes through the Mediterranean, Egypt, and the Red Sea, I don't know if the benefits of having a colony that much closer to the Arabs and other eastern trading partners and eliminating the middleman is worth the time, risk, distance (both for communication and as an added risk), and money for the Carthaginians to want to put in to it, when they could far more easily monopolize Iberian silver, or control Mediterranean shipping, or eliminate the British tin middlemen instead.
Two other points: 1. We don't know with any certainty how far down the African coast the Carthaginians or their Phoenician forebears ventured. Hanno may not have made it past Mt. Cameroon, but Herodotus suggests circumnavigation of the entire continent several centuries prior:
(Herodotus passage)
Given this method of planting next year's supplies when stocks run short, it wouldn't be unreasonable for voyaging Punics to find that the soil around the Cape is particularly productive toward growing Mediterranean foodstuffs.
I'm quite aware of the Herodotus passage - his work is a really fascinating one, that I've read once and hope to read plenty more times as I enter college and hopefully, one day, become a classical historian. Indeed, I've mentioned it a couple times in my posts throughout the thread, and I've admitted that Carthage very well might have circumnavigated the coast multiple times - I'm skeptical that it was any sort of regular thing, but I'd say it's reasonable enough to assume that it could and, on occasion, did happen.
In any case, traveling Carthaginians or Phoenicians (take your pick) may very well find that the southern African soil is quite good for their crops. However, I doubt that that means that it's far more likely that they'll actually settle the region, considering how they'd be currently settling regions of the Mediterranean - they don't need to find new sources to grow Mediterranean food, when they're settling regions in the Mediterranean. Again, is South Africa really so alluring that people would settle there over their aforementioned colonies, or Britain?
2. We also don't know for certain how far along the African coast the furthest Carthaginian settlement may have been located. The site that you're suggesting only reflects what archaeology has uncovered thus far, which may not be the definitive limit. Essaouira, Morocco, is often associated with the settlement of Arambys, but the settlement of Cerne existed beyond that and has still not been properly identified - It could have been as far as Western Sahara, Mauritania, or even Senegal.
And who knows - maybe that's the case. But I'll take the current archaeology, rather than assume that the Carthaginians were another few hundred miles further south. If discoveries come to the contrary, then I'll reform my opinion, but as of now, without such evidence, I see no reason to.
These settlements didn't disappear at all. The names of the settlements given in the Periplus don't readily allow identification with later cities, but such is the case with the names of many fringe locations and tribes described in older geographic texts (just where is Ptolemy's Kattigara, pr Herodotus' Agisymba?)
These early Arab settlements in East Africa not only survived, they flourished and gave rise to even more settlements even further south. Enterprising Persians and Somalis even got in on the act. From Azania spawned Zanzibar, Sofala, Mombasa, Malindi, Mogadishu, Kilwa, Pemba, Pate, and more. They converted to Islam, intermarried with Bantu locals, and adapted the new, hybrid language of Swahili as their lingua franca, which is now spoken deep in the interior of East Africa as well.
Interesting. Obviously I was ignorant; I did not know that. Thank you for sharing that. I still disagree in where you're going with this (my response below), but that is a valuable bit of information to keep in mind next time I find myself in some crazy discussion about the tribal peoples of ancient southern Africa.

Likewise, no one is suggesting that a surviving Carthaginian settlement in South Africa would not evolve just as dynamically as the Arab (and later Persian, Somali, and Swahili) settlements in East Africa did. ... The differences only bring about more food for thought - For example, the Arabs were settling amongst Bantu agriculturalists who knew what worked for that climate better, leading to much cultural diffusion in both directions. Carthaginians in the Cape already have the right agricultural package for that region, and the only people living there are non-agricultural Khoisan nomads.
50-100 or so men shipwrecked while sailing past the Cape (that seems to be the accepted theory on here now, correct?) isn't quite the same as what the Arabs did in East Africa. You say that they had fairly populated cities... here, all it is is a few men on a boat, that would have to rely on the natives for women and supplies to establish themselves as a community. It seems to me far more likely that they'll become "indigenenized" then having their culture become a dominant, or the dominant, one in South Africa, considering how they'd have little to no contact with Carthage again, and, as I said, would need the natives to maintain their initial existence as a culture. The Roanoke colony would have had more people, and we have a pretty good idea of what happened to them... so I guess I'm just not really seeing that.
If Carthage were to actually set up a true colony in the Cape, sort of like what the Arabs did, and had the time to establish themselves as not only a completely separate culture and having a noteworthy population, than I wouldn't have much of a problem in seeing longstanding Carthaginian influences on South African culture - though I still would highly doubt the conquest bit that had earlier been suggested. The main problem that I have with this is, obviously, the "how", the actual founding of such a colony. I don't see what would drive Carthage to setting up a colony in South Africa, or any wealthy individual, or the entire city of Carthage (trying to flee from the Romans), would specifically go all the way to South Africa to settle, when there are plenty of other points that they could settle at that wouldn't be so far, so risky, and would have most of the same, if not more, benefits than what a South African colony might have. Maybe if circumnavigating Africa was any sort of big thing rather than a once in a great while sort of enterprise, and if Carthaginian colonies extended to Senegal or Sierra Leone or wherever in that general vicinity, then I could see it, but given how there's not a whole lot of factual, verifiable evidence for either of those, well, I can't really.
The hypothetical development of a Carthaginian Cape society is just as interesting as the "how".
I just don't understand why we should focus on this particular "how", when there are other just as entertaining and fascinating (at least for me) places that Carthage might colonize, that have far more likely "hows" - like Britain. Such reservations don't seem to be a problem for much anyone but me, however, which is why I'll back out of the argument after this post.
Actually, when colonising rather than raiding, they seem to have used mainly knarrs -- which were a type of 'roundship', also used for trading voyages -- rather than the longship with which people generally associate them.
Interesting; didn't know that either. Thanks.
Phoenicians ships are varied, recall it's mostly a merchant fleet and triremes are a naval vessel, with skilled sail arrays, enclosed decks, shallow draft, and mostly made of generally available materials (trees are easy to find compared to what you need for later ships.) They're bigger than many of the ships from the Age of Exploration and given the role of very long distance voyages, i.e. Lebannon to England?, they have a lot more oceanic expertise than anyone other than the Ethiopians, Indians, etc. rather than just Med sailors. The Romans, Egyptians, Hittites, Babylonians, etc. relied on Phoenician naval architecture and ships, the Egyptians used them for much of their navy function and shipping.)
Where did you read that they were bigger than ships from the age of exploration? I've never heard that anywhere, don't recall reading that in any of the Carthaginian or Greek books I've read (I do have a bad memory for such things though), or seen it on the internet after looking for them a bit. I've gotten the impression that merchant ships were more or less fitted triremes, and weren't much bigger, and relied on oaring and the wind fairly evenly. Plus, I always remember one of Alexander the Great's big requests after his death being that he wanted a fleet of warships bigger than triremes to be built, first to help conquer Carthage and other places that might resist, but then afterwards to circumnavigate Africa - am I remembering that wrong? So that's what I was going off of, when I kept stressing triremes being the Carthaginian ship in the hypothetical founding of such a colony. If you have a good source to the contrary, however, I'd love to see it!


May as well continue the learning session for me.
