Punic people
The Punic people, usually known as the Carthaginians[1] (and sometimes as Western Phoenicians),[2] were a Semitic people who migrated from Phoenicia to the Western Mediterranean[3] during the Early Iron Age. In modern scholarship, the term Punic, the Latin equivalent of the Greek-derived term Phoenician, is exclusively used to refer to Phoenicians in the western Mediterranean, following the line of the Greek East and Latin West. The largest Punic settlement was Ancient Carthage (essentially modern Tunis), but there were 300 other settlements along the North African coast from Leptis Magna in modern Libya to Mogador in southern Morocco,[4] as well as western Sicily, southern Sardinia, the southern and eastern coasts of the Iberian Peninsula, Malta, and Ibiza. Their language, Punic, was a dialect of Phoenician, one of the Northwest Semitic languages originating in the Levant.[5]
This article is about the Punic people. For the Punic language, see Punic language. For the civilisation, see Ancient Carthage.
Literary sources report two moments of Tyrian settlements in the west, the first in the 12th century BC (the cities Utica, Lixus, and Gadir) that hasn't been confirmed by archaeology, and a second at the end of the 9th century BC, documented in written references in both east and west, which culminated in the foundation of colonies in northwest Africa (the cities Auza, Carthage, and Kition)[6] and formed part of trading networks linked to Tyre, Arvad, Byblos, Berytus, Ekron, and Sidon in the Phoenician homeland. Although links with Phoenicia were retained throughout their history, they also developed close trading relations with other peoples of the western Mediterranean, such as Sicilians, Sardinians, Berbers, Greeks, and Iberians, and developed some cultural traits distinct from those of their Phoenician homeland. Some of these were shared by all western Phoenicians, while others were restricted to individual regions within the Punic sphere.
The western Phoenicians were arranged into a multitude of self-governing city-states. Carthage had grown to be the largest and most powerful of these city-states by the 5th century BC and gained increasingly close control over Punic Sicily and Sardinia in the 4th century BC, but communities in Iberia remained outside their control until the second half of the 3rd century BC. In the course of the Punic wars (264–146 BC), the Romans challenged Carthaginian hegemony in the western Mediterranean, culminating in the destruction of Carthage in 146 BC, but the Punic language and Punic culture endured under Roman rule, surviving in some places until late antiquity.
Distribution[edit]
Tunisia[edit]
Tunisia was among the areas settled during the first wave of Phoenician expansion into the west, with the foundation of Utica and Hippo Regius taking place around the end of the twelfth century.[34] Further Phoenician settlements, were established in the following centuries, including Hippo Diarrhytus[35] and Hadrumetum.[36]
The foundation of Carthage on the site of modern Tunis is dated to the late 9th century BC by Greek literary sources and archaeological evidence. The literary sources attribute the foundation to a group of Tyrian refugees led by Dido and accompanied by Cypriots. Archaeologically, the new foundation is characterised by the focus of religious cult on the gods Tanit and Baal Hammon, by the development of a new religious structure, the tophet, and by a marked degree of cosmopolitanism.[37]
Carthage gained direct control over the Cap Bon peninsula, operating a sandstone quarry at El Haouaria from the middle of the seventh city and establishing the city of Kerkouane in the early sixth century.[38] The region was very fertile and allowed Carthage to be economically self-sufficient.[39] The site of Kerkouane has been extensively excavated and provides the best-known example of a Punic city from North Africa.
Punic control also extended inland over the Libyans. Punic influence on inland regions is seen from the early 6th century, notably at Althiburos, where Punic construction techniques and red-slip pottery appear at the time.[38] Armed conflicts with the Libyans are first attested in the early 5th century, with several revolts attested in the fourth century (398, 370s, 310-307 BC). In the late 4th century, Aristotle reports that the Carthaginians dealt with local discontent by resettling poor citizens in cities in Libya.[40][41] These settlements had to provide tribute and military manpower when required, but remained self-governing. There is some onomastic evidence for intermarriage between Punic people and Libyans in the 4th and 3rd centuries BC.[42]
History[edit]
Origins[edit]
It is unclear when the Phoenicians began to seriously colonize North Africa. Writers in antiquity, such as Pliny the Elder,[55] dated the beginning of the colonization efforts to the 12th and 11th centuries BC, as several legends describe interactions between Phoenician colonists and famous figures from the Trojan War, such as Aeneas. Archaeological evidence, on the other hand, generally implies that the colonies began in the 8th century BC as, barring a few exceptional sites, any material evidence of Phoenician habitation before this time period is lacking.
The Phoenician colonial system was motivated by economic opportunity, not expansionist ideology and, as such, the Phoenicians lacked the numbers or even the desire to establish an "empire" overseas. The colonies were therefore independent city-states, though most were relatively small, probably having a population of less than 1,000. Some colonies, such as Carthage, were able to grow much larger.[56] Effectively establishing a monopoly on the continent's natural resources, the colonies' wealth exploded, which was compounded by an influx of Phoenician traders fleeing from increasing tributary obligations to foreign powers and trade interference.[57][58][59]
Within a century, the population of Carthage rose to 30,000, meanwhile, the "mother city" of Tyre, once the economic and political capital of Phoenicia, began to lose its status in the seventh century BC.[60] Phoenicia was eventually conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire,[61][62] by which point Carthage had become the wealthiest and most powerful of all the Phoenician colonies. Around this time, a distinct culture began to emerge from the admixture of local customs with Phoenician traditions, which also gave rise to a nascent sense of national identity. Tyre's status and power continued to diminish under Neo-Assyrian, and subsequently Neo-Babylonian, vassalage, and by the sixth century BC, its voluntary submission to the Achaemenid Empire had severely circumscribed what little power it retained. Its status as the pre-eminent Phoenician city was then usurped by its rival city-state, Sidon – but Sidon too was under Persian subjugation, leading the way for Carthage to fill the power vacuum as the leading Phoenician political power.
650–146 BC[edit]
With Phoenicia's decline, Carthage had become effectively independent from Tyre by 650 BC. Carthaginians carried out significant sea explorations around Africa and elsewhere from their base in Carthage. In the 5th century BC, Hanno the Navigator played a significant role in exploring coastal areas of present-day Morocco and other parts of the African coast, specifically noting details of indigenous peoples, such as at Essaouira.[63][64] Carthaginians pushed westerly into the Atlantic and established important settlements in Lixus, Volubilis, Chellah, and Mogador, among other locations.
Being trade rivals with Magna Graecia, the Carthaginians had several clashes with the Greeks over the island of Sicily in the Sicilian Wars from 600 to 265 BC. The Carthaginians eventually also fought Rome in three Punic Wars between 265 and 146 BC but they were defeated in each one. In the First Punic War, they lost control of Sicily. In the Second Punic War, an invasion of Italy by Hannibal was unsuccessful in forcing the Romans to surrender and the Carthaginians were subsequently defeated by Scipio Africanus in Spain and at the Battle of Zama in northern Africa in 202 BC, marking the end of Carthage's position as a major Mediterranean power. Finally, in the Third Punic War, Carthage was destroyed in 146 BC. Victory in the Punic Wars enabled Roman settlement of Africa and eventual domination of the entire Mediterranean Sea.
146 BC–700 AD[edit]
The destruction of Carthage did not mean the end of the Punic people. After the wars, the city of Carthage was completely razed and the land around it was turned into farmland for Roman citizens. There were, however, other Punic cities in northwest Africa, and Carthage itself was rebuilt and regained some importance, if a shadow of its ancient influence. Although the area was partially romanized and some of the population adopted the Roman religion, while fusing it with aspects of their beliefs and customs, the language and the ethnicity persisted for some time.
The cult to Baal Hammon, and the consequent sacrifice of children, though banned by Rome,[65] continued openly under the guise of worshipping Saturn until at least the proconsulate of Tiberius Iulius Secundus in Africa (131–132). This is attested by Tertullian in his Apologeticus, where he reports that Tiberius crucified the priests of "Saturn" on the same trees they consecrated to the god. Tertullian also mentions the goddess Juno Caelestis as a romanization of Tanit.[66][67]
Carthage was rebuilt about 46 BC by Julius Caesar, and settlements in the surrounding area were granted to soldiers who had retired from the Roman army. People of Punic origin prospered again as traders, merchants and even politicians of the Roman Empire. The emperor Septimius Severus had Punic ancestry.[68]
As Christianity spread in the Roman Empire, it was especially successful in northwest Africa, and Carthage became a Christian city even before Christianity was legal. Saint Augustine, born in Thagaste (modern-day Algeria), considered himself Punic, and left some important reflections on Punic cultural history in his writing.[69] One of his more well known passages reads:
Augustine is the last ancient writer to indicate that the Punic language was widely spoken.[71] The last remains of a distinct Punic culture probably disappeared somewhere in the chaos during the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The demographic and cultural characteristics of the region were thoroughly transformed by turbulent events such as the Vandals' wars with Byzantines and the population movements that followed, as well as the Muslim conquest of North Africa in the 7th century AD.[72] After the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb, the geographer al-Bakri described a people who spoke a language which was not Berber, Latin, or Coptic,[73] living in Sirte, where spoken Punic survived well past written use.[74] Whether this refers to some remnant Punic population is uncertain; if it does, it represents the last known record of the people's existence.
Genetics[edit]
mtDNA[edit]
In 1994, a Punic burial crypt was discovered on Byrsa Hill, near the entry to the National Museum of Carthage in Tunisia. Inside this crypt were the remains of a young man along with a range of burial goods, all dating to the late 6th century BCE. An osteological analysis of the young man from Byrsa, or Ariche, as he has become known, determined that he was approximately 1.7 m tall and aged between 19 and 24 years, and a craniometric analysis indicated likely Mediterranean/European ancestry as opposed to African or Asian. In 2016, it was revealed that the individual belonged to the rare U5b2c1, which is the earliest evidence of this European lineage in North Africa.[75]
Mitochondrial analysis of 10 Punic samples from the necropolis of Tharros in Sardinia (5th – 3rd century BC) shows affinities with North African and Iberian populations.[76]
Y-DNA[edit]
A recent genetic study has linked haplogroups E-M81, E-FGC18960 and E-V65 to the diffusion of the Phoenician language in the Western Mediterranean. According to Penninx (2019):