North African Phoenician Cities other than Carthage?

In our timeline and many ATLs on this site covering the period, Phoenician power in North Africa is an all-or-nothing affair. It is either an empire or republic based on the city of Carthage.

But there is so many other cities founded by Phoenicians along the North African and Spanish Coast. In fact several of them were independent in our timeline, although in the end they were all incorporated into some other power (eventually the Roman Empire). So is there any other Phoenician cities that could rise to a position of prominence, even to the level of Carthage.

I would be most interested in it happening after the independence of Carthage from Tyre (so Carthage should still exist) but any details would be useful.

To give an idea of the number of settlements (admittedly many of them are small or out of the way):

carthage2.jpg


Part of the advantage Carthage has is that it is near the narrow area between Tunisia and Italy so it sees a lot of traffic, but with a little luck surely some of the other cities could reach that level on their own.
 
I wonder if the original cities get through the Alexander conquest and retain their fleet. Someone takes over and allies with the Greeks in Sicily in order to break Carthage and as a result another Phonecian city (Spain maybe?) takes eminence. An early POD would be better but I don't know much about Phonecian history
 
Utica was a very important city even in Carthaginian times, and in fact pre-dated it. In addition to this, it was never really a subject city of Carthage, more an ally. A prime candidate for an alternate power.
 
Utica was a very important city even in Carthaginian times, and in fact pre-dated it. In addition to this, it was never really a subject city of Carthage, more an ally. A prime candidate for an alternate power.

I thought it got incorporated into the Carthaginian Empire eventually...I thought all Phoenicians-outside-of-Phoenicia did. Although I'm very happy to be corrected on what actually constituted Carthaginian territory.

Perhaps Hadrumentum? Seems to be on another wide harbor like Carthage was.
 
From the handful of books on the Phoenicians I've read it sounds like the cities were independent political entities in very loose alliances but mostly commercial relationships with the others, and far more focused on trade than military states...so much more like the Italian city-states of the Renaissance, the Dutch, the Portuguese, and Americans. That's a tough approach to raise big land armies from, while contemporary accounts indicate they dominated the Med both in naval and merchant shipping. I think you're right it's clear the Phoenician colonies in other places than Carthage could have grown quite a bit further. Spain is clearly a tremendous base with major key geological deposits accessible to that period's mining/smelting/refining technologies, Atlantic and Med coastlines for an ideal trade location with especially favorable ocean currents & wind patterns, but comparatively easy to defend from land invasion and obviously able to support millions of people. Remaining proximate to the populations of Gaul and Britain while carrying on Baltic trade with the Belgae, Germans, etc. would perhaps make it much harder for Rome to conquer Western Europe with this Spain allying, arming, advising, supplying those Northern neighbors, a classic containment strategy combining naval blockades, proxy armies, multi-front campaigns, and comparable technology and organization.

Maybe Rome fails to invade Carthaginian Spain or you skip the Punic Wars entirely and face Rome North or East and out of the Med, which actually makes more sense given the superiority of their land army, farm organization, road systems, bureaucracy, etc. than OTL's launching of amphibious invasions of Sicily, Carthage, Egypt, etc. which is pretty alien space bats likely when you think about it logistically.
 
Top