Carthage: A History

by B.H. Warmington

It is many years since a book about ancient Carthage appeared in this country in spite of the fact that Carthage played a major part in the history of Rome, and of the Greek colonies in Sicily. I hope that this attempt to give an account of Carthaginian history and civilization and to describe its position in the ancient Mediterranean world will do something to fill the gap.

The difficulty which faces anyone who tries to write such an account is that he must rely largely on the information provided by the Greek and Roman enemies of Carthage, since nothing survives of the Carthaginians' own literature. It is true that there were several Greek writers who described the history of the wars of Carthage with Rome from a standpoint favourable to the former, but their works are lost and what we know of them has to be deduced from later writers who used them as a source. Essentially the Carthaginians are portrayed for us by Greeks for whom they were a people who disputed possession of Sicily, and by Romans for whom they were the rivals in a struggle for mastery of the western Mediterranean, and it is not surprising that the picture is an extremely hostile one. The task is to separate the truth from the fiction, the legitimate criticism from the tendentious, without indulging in unjustified sentiment in favour of a state which suffered such a cruel end. There is the further point that Carthaginian history is only recorded when it impinges on the history of Rome or of the Greeks in Sicily. However, the information which can be gathered from ancient authors about the general history, in situations, religion and trade of the Carthaginians can be augmented by the results of the archaeological work which has been done in North Africa over the past fifty years, and especially since 1946. There can be no doubt that as a result of the discoveries and analyses of material which have been made lately, the archaeology of Carthage is entering a new and important phase.

I have sought to combine these two sources of information while admittedly concentrating on the literary material, which must be the basis of all historical writing. It must be said that in some places the narrative of events is presented as if the facts were certain, which is very far from being the case; almost every important aspect of Carthaginian history has been the subject of several different interpretations by modem scholars. But a discussion of all the problems would have required an apparatus of footnotes and qualifications which would have been out of keeping with the purpose of the book, designed as it is for those who have an interest in the history of antiquity but not a specialized knowledge.

CONTENTS:
PREFACE
I THE FOUNDATION OF CARTHAGE
II EARLY CONTACTS WITH THE GREEKS
III CARTHAGINIAN EXPANSION IN THE FIFTH CENTURY
IV THE WARS IN SICILY AGAINST DIONYSIUS OF SYRACUSE
V THE WAR AGAINST TIMOLEON AND THE INVASION OF AFRICA BY AGATHOCLES
VI THE CITY OF CARTHAGE AND ITS POLITICAL, ECONOMIC AND RELIGIOUS LIFE
VII THE FIRST WAR WITH ROME
VIII HANNIBAL
IX THE DESTRUCTION OF CARTHAGE
SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX

Genres: Ancient, Nonfiction, History

272 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1964

Reviews

[Lauren Albert · Rating 5 out of 5]

I know people see this as dated, though that’s no criticism of the historian. But I felt it was an even handed look at a difficult topic to be even handed about because of the lack of sources from Carthage. It was also quite readable.

[John Isles · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Carthaginians can't tell us their history because none of their writings survive. Apart from the findings of archaeology, all we have is the accounts by Greek and Roman historians, mostly about the wars they fought against Carthage, and so generally hostile in viewpoint. The story gains interest when Carthage faces Rome in the three Punic Wars. The present volume, originally written in 1958 and inexpensively reprinted by Barnes & Noble, is based mainly on the ancient literary sources, though the author repeats the 19th-century invention that the Romans sowed salt into the ground of sacked Carthage to render it barren; no ancient author told such a story. There are no illustrations other than a few maps, on which some placenames are spelled differently from the text, and not all the places mentioned are shown. A summary list of people mentioned would have been helpful; there are rather too many Hasdrubals, Hamilcars, and Scipios for the reader to keep straight. For example, Scipio Aemilianus was last seen in Africa on page 234 when an unspecified Scipio is sent from Rome on the next page. Was he Scipio Nasica then? No in fact, it was Aemilianus again. Despite these faults and a few misprints I did enjoy reading the book.

[Erick Romero · Rating 5 out of 5]

If all history books were like this, I'd have made the decision to make that field of study a career of mine sooner. Warmington's ability to turn ancient history into page-turning drama, while making all the necessary disclaimers one would need while attempting to tell the story of a civilization literally wiped off the face of the Earth, reaffirmed my love of history and gave me an example of the sort of book I'd like to write.

There's also an element of chance with this, too, since I randomly picked up this volume while browsing the stacks in the Perry-Casteñeda Library at the University of Texas at Austin. A solid red book caught my eye on the shelf, I picked it up to read a couple of pages, and promptly decided it was time to learn about Carthage. My knowledge of the ancient world was lacking, and the little bits of it here and there I've learned through YouTube or mentions of it when reading other books enticed me to go deeper. I'm grateful the book was there, calling to me.

This work was published in 1960, and I don’t think the author published a lot, but I’ll try to read his other offerings. It seems like he had a wide variety of interests, at least based on the short Wiki entry I just read, in the ancient world. Might as well let Warmington be my guide on this journey; fitting that a dead person would be the one to lead me to learn more about even more dead-er people. Perhaps I’m being a bit morbid, but if you found out what the last Carthaginian general’s wife did to herself and her kids rather than surrender to the Romans, you’d be throwing out some dark humor, too.

[Adam Chandler · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good overview of the history of the Carthaginian Empire from before its founding to its destruction under the Romans. The main source of information are from the ancient historians to make this a good compilation and evaluation of what is available through ancient writers. Since these are ancient non-Carthaginians, the bulk of the book is concerned with the later wars of Carthage where it went against the Greeks and Romans. The drawback for the work is that it is an older work so the archeological data is largely absent. However, it is still helpful as an overview of Carthaginian history.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

The edition I have of this was written in 1958 so it is pretty outdated. The archaeology available at the time was sketchy and doesn't show evidence of the riches that Carthage supposedly had, suggesting that either better archaeology may have been done later, it was looted, or that most of their trade goods were food or other stuff that degraded over time. All in all, this guy did a decent job with the limited source material available on Carthage. His writing was dry, but not as dry as I would have expected for a history book this old. Still readable, but disappointing since I was hoping to add something to my knowledge of Carthage that wasn't already contained in the Roman perspective.

[Walt · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent and easy to read books about Carthage. Few studies really describe the rise and fall of a society completely oriented towards capitalism.

Warmington is clear and concise without being overly dry and academic. This book can easily been read by lay people. He is especially clear in his comparison/contrast with Carthage and Rome.