The small outpost of Carthage, on the North African coast. With a population of around 1,000 it was small, and still vulnerable to attack from the African clans that inhabited the lowlands between the desert and the sea. Her small population meant that she had no need to expand and, as a commercial centre, her concern was the sea, not the vast continent to the south.
However, in the late 6th century Nebuchadnezzar II, King of Babylon, marched west from Babylon to Phoenicia. His vast army was too powerful for the cities of Phoenicia, whose martial powers were limited and who relied on foreign mercenaries and their ships for their strength. They were therefore forced to pay tribute to the conquering king, who headed south to crush the Kingdom of Israel. While he was away, several headstrong members of the Tyrian Senate, who wanted to form a coalition with the other Phoenician cities and defeat Nebuchadnezzar, came to power and marshalled the city’s forces. They armed as much of the male population as they could and, from their defensive spot off shore, incited revolts across the Levant.
The Babylonian force, hearing of the revolt, lifted the siege of Jerusalem and turned on the Phoenicians. They had some 10,000 soldiers and these marched on Tyre, judging it to be the centre of the uprising. Meanwhile, in their rear Israel rose up and marched in support of he Phoenician, their Semitic cousins.
In Tyre the debate raged over whether to attack the Babylonians while they were marching and unprepared raged. Finally several of the younger members, their leader the son of one of the city’s leading magistrates, distraught at the Senate’s deadlock, left the city with some 200 followers and attacked the Babylonian vanguard. At first the fight was in the Tyrian’s favour, but soon Babylonian reinforcements arrived and they found themselves surrounded. They were finally beaten, and their leader was captured.
Their leader, a boy named Adonis, was held captive and paraded before the walls of Tyre. The Babylonians demanded that the boy would be returned if his father would surrender himself. The boys father, and old and venerated member of the Senate and the leader of the people, agreed and so exchanged himself for his headstrong son. Adonis watched from the walls as his father was crucified upside down on the shore.
Their morale shattered by the loss of their city father, the people of the city turned against Adonis and his followers. He was attacked in the market and this turned into a general conflagration. Hearing the din of battle from within the city, Nebuchadnezzar ordered an attack. Too late the people of Tyre rallied to the defence yet they had already lost their walls. With soldiers pouring through the city, one last effort was made to save the city.
Her youth, the youngest warriors and the finest youth were put onto ships and under the leadership of respected magistrates (or those who survived the initial onslaught) were cast off into the west. Some 440 warriors were saved, one of them was Adonis. He could barely be restrained from leading into the sea and going back to fight and die. He finally shouted out: ‘Of all my sins, let cowardice not be counted among them.’ Nonetheless, he was lashed to the mast and finally he cooled down and was persuaded to stay and help his people find a new home by one of the elders.
They wandered from one end of the Sea to another. They were careful to avoid the island of Crete and the Greeks, who would be eager to crush the last flowering of their old maritime rivals. They briefly landed in Egypt where they took on supplies and passed on word of Tyre’s destruction to several Phoenician merchants there. Several merchants decided to come with them, and so another three or so ships were added to the morose flotilla.
After nearly a month at sea they arrived at Carthage. The city had been founded two centuries previously by Tyrian merchants as an outpost controlling the central Mediterranean. In the late 6th century BC it was still small, still obliged to pay tribute to its Libyan neighbours. Nonetheless, the refugees arrived there dishevelled and drained. They told the people of the fall of the mother city and they all mourned together. It is said that the God Melqart himself roused them from their mourning, telling them to rebuild their lost glory. There is some truth to this legend, as the God Melqart had been imported to Carthage from Tyre as the city-god. It could have been this unifying factor that kept refugee and local together.
Spurred on either by divine inspiration or hunger (the city’s population had swelled and had little farmland available) Carthage waged war on her neighbours. The North African lowlands upon which the city was built was relatively fertile yet surrounded by arid desert from which descended Libyan marauders to burn and pillage. The native farmers were generally pastoralists or lived in small villages. These were gradually conquered by Carthage and her Semitic neighbour Utica, born of Sidon instead of Tyre but still a close ally. They carved out a niche in North Africa around the Medjerda River basin which was enough to support the swollen population. Furthermore, the small farming communities were often co-opted into joining the city as citizens, and so the locals were assimilated rather than massacred or displaced.
Her leader in these initial wars was the youth Adonis who, aged beyond his years, was determined to redeem himself by serving his new city. He accepted no reward nor rank, saying that he was not worthy. As a war leader he was unsurpassed, and it was he who led the negotiations with Utica that ended in the combination of the two cities into one polity.
Carthage had once been governed by a magistrate from Tyre, in co-operation with a Popular Assembly and a Senate. In these years (the late 6th century BC) the popular assembly became stronger and more vocal, especially when it came to the issue of land, which affected them far more than matters of commerce. The Senate, that rich preserve of the commercial and ecclesiastical elite, was still the most powerful body in the Carthaginian constitution, and the Suffet (head magistrate) was elected by the Senate for a three year term of office during which he held almost absolute powers over the economy, political life and diplomacy.
The one area of government he did not control was the army, for this was fast becoming the preserve of an elite of hereditary martial families. It is recorded that in 523 BC, some fifteen years after the fall of Tyre, some 10,000 acres were donated to 500 families, who received the land in return for military service from them and their heirs. Over time there would develop into the military elite, the martial aristocracy who conducted Carthage’s wars.
In the early 5th century Carthage founded her first colony in Sicily. Located on the far west of the island, Motya’s first Suffet was the near apocryphal Adonis, who seems to have led or founded nearly every major Carthaginian institution. It seems that his character was a fabrication of later historians. Indeed, the pathos and hubris of his life story seems almost too good to be true, and he seems to be an answer for every question of history. Who conquered the Libyans? Adonis. Who merged Carthage and Utica? Adonis. Who founded Carthage’s first colony? You guessed it. It is probably no coincidence that he shares a name with a potent Phoenician deity, and so he could be an even older myth, perhaps even the mythical founder of Tyre itself. If so, his ultimate betrayal of the city would be worthy of even the most melodramatic Greek tragedy.
True or untrue, the story is still good, and so I shall tell it. Indeed, I must, because we have few other sources for this period of Punic history. The story goes that Motya was founded with Adonis as its leading citizen, given the power of governorship by the Senate. He marked out the extent of the city, built a dyke and stockade, oversaw the partition of the countryside between the different colonists and the foundation of a temple to Melqart. For the first year all was well, the harvest was good and sacrifices were made. Regular contact was kept up with Carthage and some trade began as Motya began to produce earthenware and even a small agricultural surplus.
However, this was not to last as the native Sicilians, who were organised into extended clans or small kingdoms, allied under one war leader to oust this intrusion upon their traditional way of life. They mustered a band of some 2,000 men and attacked the colony, whose population was a mere 600, of whom only 400 could fight. Nonetheless, they awaited the assault and sent word to Carthage. The Sicilians, quite prepared to starve the colony, waited. However, winter was coming and so they began to feel the effects of the cold; as did the colonists.
Adonis, however, got word of a Sicilian festival which involved heavy drinking and revelry. He therefore waited until the evening of that festival and, with ten men, entered the Sicilian camp. Sure enough, all the men were either asleep or in a stupor. He therefore had little problem in going around, systematically butchering all their kings and chieftains until they were completely leaderless. He then set fire to the tents which was the signal for a general attack. Confused and in a daze, the Sicilians found their leaders dead and so fled in a panic.
Adonis, the hero of the hour, was nowhere to be found. Here the stories differ. One has them finding his body lying locked with a huge Sicilian who had apparently caught him decapitating his master and they had fought to the death. Others, however, have Adonis disappearing forever and the colonists, when they return to the temple of Melqart, find the god’s statue dressed in Adonis’s armour. Whatever the story, the truth is that Motya survived its first year and its second. When Carthaginian reinforcements arrived along with fresh colonists, they found a fresh faced young town which was expanding rapidly.
However, in the late 6th century Nebuchadnezzar II, King of Babylon, marched west from Babylon to Phoenicia. His vast army was too powerful for the cities of Phoenicia, whose martial powers were limited and who relied on foreign mercenaries and their ships for their strength. They were therefore forced to pay tribute to the conquering king, who headed south to crush the Kingdom of Israel. While he was away, several headstrong members of the Tyrian Senate, who wanted to form a coalition with the other Phoenician cities and defeat Nebuchadnezzar, came to power and marshalled the city’s forces. They armed as much of the male population as they could and, from their defensive spot off shore, incited revolts across the Levant.
The Babylonian force, hearing of the revolt, lifted the siege of Jerusalem and turned on the Phoenicians. They had some 10,000 soldiers and these marched on Tyre, judging it to be the centre of the uprising. Meanwhile, in their rear Israel rose up and marched in support of he Phoenician, their Semitic cousins.
In Tyre the debate raged over whether to attack the Babylonians while they were marching and unprepared raged. Finally several of the younger members, their leader the son of one of the city’s leading magistrates, distraught at the Senate’s deadlock, left the city with some 200 followers and attacked the Babylonian vanguard. At first the fight was in the Tyrian’s favour, but soon Babylonian reinforcements arrived and they found themselves surrounded. They were finally beaten, and their leader was captured.
Their leader, a boy named Adonis, was held captive and paraded before the walls of Tyre. The Babylonians demanded that the boy would be returned if his father would surrender himself. The boys father, and old and venerated member of the Senate and the leader of the people, agreed and so exchanged himself for his headstrong son. Adonis watched from the walls as his father was crucified upside down on the shore.
Their morale shattered by the loss of their city father, the people of the city turned against Adonis and his followers. He was attacked in the market and this turned into a general conflagration. Hearing the din of battle from within the city, Nebuchadnezzar ordered an attack. Too late the people of Tyre rallied to the defence yet they had already lost their walls. With soldiers pouring through the city, one last effort was made to save the city.
Her youth, the youngest warriors and the finest youth were put onto ships and under the leadership of respected magistrates (or those who survived the initial onslaught) were cast off into the west. Some 440 warriors were saved, one of them was Adonis. He could barely be restrained from leading into the sea and going back to fight and die. He finally shouted out: ‘Of all my sins, let cowardice not be counted among them.’ Nonetheless, he was lashed to the mast and finally he cooled down and was persuaded to stay and help his people find a new home by one of the elders.
They wandered from one end of the Sea to another. They were careful to avoid the island of Crete and the Greeks, who would be eager to crush the last flowering of their old maritime rivals. They briefly landed in Egypt where they took on supplies and passed on word of Tyre’s destruction to several Phoenician merchants there. Several merchants decided to come with them, and so another three or so ships were added to the morose flotilla.
After nearly a month at sea they arrived at Carthage. The city had been founded two centuries previously by Tyrian merchants as an outpost controlling the central Mediterranean. In the late 6th century BC it was still small, still obliged to pay tribute to its Libyan neighbours. Nonetheless, the refugees arrived there dishevelled and drained. They told the people of the fall of the mother city and they all mourned together. It is said that the God Melqart himself roused them from their mourning, telling them to rebuild their lost glory. There is some truth to this legend, as the God Melqart had been imported to Carthage from Tyre as the city-god. It could have been this unifying factor that kept refugee and local together.
Spurred on either by divine inspiration or hunger (the city’s population had swelled and had little farmland available) Carthage waged war on her neighbours. The North African lowlands upon which the city was built was relatively fertile yet surrounded by arid desert from which descended Libyan marauders to burn and pillage. The native farmers were generally pastoralists or lived in small villages. These were gradually conquered by Carthage and her Semitic neighbour Utica, born of Sidon instead of Tyre but still a close ally. They carved out a niche in North Africa around the Medjerda River basin which was enough to support the swollen population. Furthermore, the small farming communities were often co-opted into joining the city as citizens, and so the locals were assimilated rather than massacred or displaced.
Her leader in these initial wars was the youth Adonis who, aged beyond his years, was determined to redeem himself by serving his new city. He accepted no reward nor rank, saying that he was not worthy. As a war leader he was unsurpassed, and it was he who led the negotiations with Utica that ended in the combination of the two cities into one polity.
Carthage had once been governed by a magistrate from Tyre, in co-operation with a Popular Assembly and a Senate. In these years (the late 6th century BC) the popular assembly became stronger and more vocal, especially when it came to the issue of land, which affected them far more than matters of commerce. The Senate, that rich preserve of the commercial and ecclesiastical elite, was still the most powerful body in the Carthaginian constitution, and the Suffet (head magistrate) was elected by the Senate for a three year term of office during which he held almost absolute powers over the economy, political life and diplomacy.
The one area of government he did not control was the army, for this was fast becoming the preserve of an elite of hereditary martial families. It is recorded that in 523 BC, some fifteen years after the fall of Tyre, some 10,000 acres were donated to 500 families, who received the land in return for military service from them and their heirs. Over time there would develop into the military elite, the martial aristocracy who conducted Carthage’s wars.
In the early 5th century Carthage founded her first colony in Sicily. Located on the far west of the island, Motya’s first Suffet was the near apocryphal Adonis, who seems to have led or founded nearly every major Carthaginian institution. It seems that his character was a fabrication of later historians. Indeed, the pathos and hubris of his life story seems almost too good to be true, and he seems to be an answer for every question of history. Who conquered the Libyans? Adonis. Who merged Carthage and Utica? Adonis. Who founded Carthage’s first colony? You guessed it. It is probably no coincidence that he shares a name with a potent Phoenician deity, and so he could be an even older myth, perhaps even the mythical founder of Tyre itself. If so, his ultimate betrayal of the city would be worthy of even the most melodramatic Greek tragedy.
True or untrue, the story is still good, and so I shall tell it. Indeed, I must, because we have few other sources for this period of Punic history. The story goes that Motya was founded with Adonis as its leading citizen, given the power of governorship by the Senate. He marked out the extent of the city, built a dyke and stockade, oversaw the partition of the countryside between the different colonists and the foundation of a temple to Melqart. For the first year all was well, the harvest was good and sacrifices were made. Regular contact was kept up with Carthage and some trade began as Motya began to produce earthenware and even a small agricultural surplus.
However, this was not to last as the native Sicilians, who were organised into extended clans or small kingdoms, allied under one war leader to oust this intrusion upon their traditional way of life. They mustered a band of some 2,000 men and attacked the colony, whose population was a mere 600, of whom only 400 could fight. Nonetheless, they awaited the assault and sent word to Carthage. The Sicilians, quite prepared to starve the colony, waited. However, winter was coming and so they began to feel the effects of the cold; as did the colonists.
Adonis, however, got word of a Sicilian festival which involved heavy drinking and revelry. He therefore waited until the evening of that festival and, with ten men, entered the Sicilian camp. Sure enough, all the men were either asleep or in a stupor. He therefore had little problem in going around, systematically butchering all their kings and chieftains until they were completely leaderless. He then set fire to the tents which was the signal for a general attack. Confused and in a daze, the Sicilians found their leaders dead and so fled in a panic.
Adonis, the hero of the hour, was nowhere to be found. Here the stories differ. One has them finding his body lying locked with a huge Sicilian who had apparently caught him decapitating his master and they had fought to the death. Others, however, have Adonis disappearing forever and the colonists, when they return to the temple of Melqart, find the god’s statue dressed in Adonis’s armour. Whatever the story, the truth is that Motya survived its first year and its second. When Carthaginian reinforcements arrived along with fresh colonists, they found a fresh faced young town which was expanding rapidly.