MILITARY AND COMMERCIAL PORT OF CARTHAGE

[Anatol]

Carthage was founded in the ninth century BC on the coast of North Africa as a Phoenician colony.
Carthage is situated on a peninsula in the Gulf of Tunis. According to the Greek historian Appianus, the city had a triple wall, each 45 feet high and 30 feet wide, with barracks for 24,000 men and stables for 4,000 horses and 300 elephants.
Carthage had, as we shall see, several small harbours or anchorages, two large artificial harbours between the peninsula and the mainland, a commercial harbour with a military one behind it. The mouth of the Carthaginian harbour, situated north of the later Roman entrance, was, according to Appianus, 20 metres wide and could be closed with a large iron chain, so that nobody could enter or leave the harbour.
Ships came and went from all over the Mediterranean and the Atlantic coasts of Africa, Spain, France and even England.
The entrance to the Roman harbour (see figure) was narrow with a large watchtower that kept an eye on the harbour and the sea. Appianus writes that 220 ships could moor there at the same time.
They traded in the royal purple and blue dye from Tyre, tin for making bronze, silver, gold, wood, wine, clothes, pottery, carpets, jewellery, lamps and many other goods. The Carthaginians were famed in antiquity for their seafaring skills and innovation in ship design. Carthage took over the old Phoenician colonies in the Mediterranean and created many new ones so that its empire included North Africa, the Iberian peninsula, Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, and many other islands. To maintain trade contacts between these cities and to police their interests the Carthaginians used a naval fleet which became the envy of the ancient world. Such was its strength that Rome, although successful in land battles, was forced to build its first ever fleet in order to defeat Carthage and claim the western Mediterranean for its own. For three centuries prior to the Punic Wars, though, the Carthaginian fleet ruled the waves.
Inheriting the skills passed on to them by the mother country Phoenicia the Carthaginians were admired across the ancient Mediterranean not only for their seamanship but also the quality of their ships. The size of the fleet changed depending on the period, but according to the ancient historian Polybius, Carthage had a fleet of 350 ships in 256 BCE.
The naval fleet of Carthage was composed of large warships propelled by sail and oars which were used to ram enemy vessels using a bronze ram mounted on the prow below the waterline. Direction was controlled by two steering-oars fixed to either side of the stern. Each oar was fitted with a horizontal bar for the helmsmen to handle. The Phoenicians had invented the trireme with three banks of rowers, but after using these in their early history the Carthaginians would later progress in the 4th century BCE to the bigger and faster ships with four and five men per oar, the quadrireme and quinquereme. The quinquereme, so called for its arrangement of five rowers per vertical line of three oars, became the most widely used in the Punic fleet. Catapults could be mounted on the deck of these large vessels but were probably limited to siege warfare and not used in ship-to-ship battles. The Harbour of Carthage: The Punic naval fleet had its own harbour separate from but connected to the merchant harbour at Carthage. The naval harbour was massive and circular whilst the merchant ships anchored in a rectangular one. Both ports were manmade, about two metres deep, and they possibly date to 220-210 BCE. The centre of the naval harbour was dominated by a tower structure known as the 'the admiral's island' which connected to the outer ring via a causeway. Appian gives an idea of the great size of the naval harbour by describing the central island's capacity for 30 ships and the 21-metre wide entrance. The outer ring of ship sheds could hold another 170 ships. From recent archaeology we now know that the harbour was 325 metres in diameter and matches Appian's description
Тhe first known sea battle involving the Carthaginian navy was in 535 BCE against the Phocaeans off Corsica However, the best documented naval engagements, and those most vital to Carthage's survival, came during the Punic Wars with Rome now as enemy number one. The result of the 3 Punic Wars, Carthage was destroyed by Roman troops after a 3-year siege.
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Sources: https://www.worldhistory.org/Carthagini ... l_Warfare/,
https://www.romanports.org/en/articles/ ... thage.html.