Foundation depicting the god
Baal Hammon, from the era of Roman Carthage, 1st century BC,
Bardo National Museum of Tunis After the Roman conquest of Carthage, its nearby rival
Utica, a Roman ally, was made capital of the region and for a while replaced Carthage as the leading centre of Punic trade and leadership. It had the advantageous position of being situated on the outlet of the
Medjerda River, Tunisia's only river that flowed all year long. However, grain cultivation in the Tunisian mountains caused large amounts of
silt to erode into the river. This silt accumulated in the harbour until it became useless, and so Rome looked for a new harbour town. By 122 BC,
Gaius Gracchus had founded a short-lived
Roman colony, called
Colonia Junonia. The purpose was to obtain arable lands for impoverished farmers. The
Senate abolished the colony some time later, to undermine Gracchus' power. After this failed effort, Carthage was rebuilt by
Julius Caesar in the period from 49 to 44 BC, with the official name
Colonia Iulia Concordia Carthago. By the first century, it had grown to be the second-largest city in the western half of the
Roman Empire. The geographer
Strabo wrote that when the third Punic War began in 149 BC, the Carthaginians ruled 300 cities in Libya and 700,000 people lived in Carthage. Dexter Hoyos writes that it was physically impossible in any period of its history for that many people to live within its walls. According to Hoyos, the population of Carthage and its surrounding territory would have been around 575,000 in 149 B.C. It was the centre of the
Roman province of Africa, which was a major breadbasket of the empire. Among its major monuments was an
amphitheatre. The
temple of Juno Caelestis, dedicated to the City Protector Goddess Juno Caelestis, was one of the biggest building monuments of Carthage, and became a holy site for pilgrims from all Northern Africa and Spain.
Early Christianity Carthage became a
centre of early Christianity. In the first of a string of rather poorly reported councils at Carthage a few years later, 70 bishops attended.
Tertullian later broke with the mainstream that was increasingly represented in the West by the
primacy of the Bishop of Rome, but a more serious rift among Christians was the
Donatist controversy, against which
Augustine of Hippo spent much time and parchment arguing. At the
Council of Carthage (397), the
biblical canon for the western Church was confirmed. The Christians at Carthage conducted
persecutions against the pagans, during which the pagan temples, including the Temple of Juno Caelesti, were destroyed. The great fire of the second century, which swept through the capital of the governor of the
province, made it possible to develop a hilly area of the city as part of an important urban planning project. A vast district of luxurious dwellings, including the "Villa de la volière", was built on this occasion. A circular monument, which was excavated during the
UNESCO campaign, called "rotonde sur podium carré", is sometimes dated to the Christian period and identified by some researchers as a mausoleum. A huge inscription to
Aesculapius was found nearby, which suggests that the Punic temple of
Eshmun was located on this site. Texts indicate that the Romans built the temple to the corresponding deity of their pantheon on the same site. either at the request of
Bonifacius, a Roman general and the governor of the
Diocese of Africa, or as migrants in search of safety. They subsequently fought against the Roman forces there and by 435 had defeated the Roman forces in Africa and established the
Vandal Kingdom. Once in power, the ecclesiastical authorities were persecuted, the locals were aggressively taxed, and naval raids were routinely launched on Romans in the Mediterranean.
Byzantine period After two failed attempts by
Majorian and
Basiliscus to recapture the city in the 5th century, the
Byzantine or Eastern Roman Empire, using the deposition of Gaiseric's grandson
Hilderic by his cousin
Gelimer as a "
casus belli", finally subdued the Vandals in the
Vandalic War of 533–534, the Roman general
Belisarius, accompanied by his wife
Antonina, made his formal entry into Carthage in October 533. Thereafter, for the next 165 years, the city was the capital of
Byzantine North Africa, first organised as the
praetorian prefecture of Africa, which later became the
Exarchate of Africa during the emperor
Maurice's reign. Along with the
Exarchate of Ravenna, these two regions were the western bulwarks of the Byzantine Empire, all that remained of its power in the West. In the early seventh century
Heraclius the Elder, the
Exarch of Africa,
rebelled against the Byzantine emperor
Phocas, whereupon his son
Heraclius succeeded to the imperial throne.
Islamic conquest The Exarchate of Africa first faced
Muslim expansion from
Egypt in 647, but without lasting effect. A more protracted campaign lasted from 670 to 683 but ended in a Muslim defeat in the
battle of Vescera. Captured by the Muslims in 695, it was recaptured by the Byzantines in 697, but was finally conquered in 698 by the
Umayyad forces of
Hassan ibn al-Nu'man. Fearing that the Eastern Roman Empire might reconquer it, the Umayyads decided to destroy Roman Carthage in a
scorched earth policy and establish their centre of government further inland at
Tunis. The city walls were torn down, the water supply cut off, the agricultural land ravaged and its harbours made unusable. The destruction of the Roman Carthage and the Exarchate of Africa marked a permanent end to Roman rule in the region, which had largely been in place since the 2nd century BC. It is visible from archaeological evidence that the town of Carthage continued to be occupied, particularly the neighbourhood of Bjordi Djedid. The
Baths of Antoninus continued to function in the Arab period and the historian
Al-Bakri stated that they were still in good condition. They also had production centres nearby. It is difficult to determine whether the continued habitation of some other buildings belonged to Late Byzantine or Early Arab period. The Bir Ftouha church might have continued to remain in use though it is not clear when it became uninhabited.
Constantine the African was born in Carthage. The fortress of Carthage continued to be used by the Muslims until the
Hafsid era and was captured in 1270 by Christian forces during the
Eighth Crusade. After the withdrawal of the Crusaders,
Muhammad I al-Mustansir decided to
completely destroy it to prevent a repetition.
Rediscovery The ruins of Carthage were rediscovered at the end of the 19th century. The
Odeon was excavated in 1900–1901, and the amphitheatre was excavated in 1904. == Amphitheatre ==