What Was The City Of Carthage Like Before Rome Eradicated It? | Lost Treasures | Odyssey

Across North Africa, physical reminders of Roman occupation are widespread. Close to Tunis is an incredible archaeological site where the remains provide strong indications of a vibrant Roman way of life. But there was a city here long before the arrival of the Romans and evidence has been found of this earlier, more mysterious community. Veiled images of horror and darkest deeds centred at the Tophet Sanctuary. Deeds which shocked the rest of the civilised world until the city's complete destruction in the fires of war. It then rose again as one of the finest settlements of the Roman age. Named after the Roman name for its inhabitants, this was the city of Punic Carthage, one of many Phoenician outposts. It was a trading centre which maintained close links with Tyre. But with the fall of that city to King Nebuchadnezzar in 574 BC, Carthage emerged as the major Phoenician territory in its own right. For the next 400 years, it was one of the greatest powers of the whole of the ancient world. In that time, Carthage grew into a large and prosperous city. The Greek writer Strabo suggested that as many as 700,000 people lived here. This figure may be slightly overstated, but there's no doubt that it was one of the largest settlements of its time. It was a city built on trade. Its inhabitants were famous across the known world as seagoing merchants. They plied the whole of the Mediterranean and beyond in their distinctive Phoenician roundboats. These were fast, sail-powered vessels with an enormous cargo capacity. The sailor merchants put this capacity to good use. They bought and sold metals, jewellery, pottery, foodstuffs, animals and anything else that would make a profit for them and their city. Discover the past with exclusive history documentaries from History Hit and uncover the secrets of some of the most famous people and events in history. Delve into the history of the ancients with History Hit's exclusive offering of documentaries. Explore with us the enchanting Temple of Karnak or take a deep dive into the fascinating prehistory of Scotland. We also aim to bring you the stories and legends that shaped our world through our award-winning podcast network. Sign up now for a free trial and Odyssey fans get 50% off their first three months. Just be sure to use the code ODYSSEY at checkout. As a sea-going people, the Carthaginians were fortunate with their city's location. Situated on a promontory on the Gulf of Tunis, Carthage possessed two superb harbours. Although both have long since silted up, we can consider what these harbours would have looked like during the city's greatest days. The first harbour was devoted to merchant shipping. In its day, this must have been a bustling dockside environment with goods from across the known world busily loaded and unloaded. In search of these goods, the Carthaginians expanded the boundaries of that known world. At first sight, it's a bit difficult to see why Carthage is such an important city in the ancient Mediterranean. After all, Tunis isn't a particularly important city in Mediterranean-wide politics today. But in the ancient Mediterranean, the logic of where the sea routes take you makes Tunisia and the Gulf of Tunis, which is where Carthage is situated, absolutely central to all the patterns of movement which are so essential for ancient culture. Athens, Syracuse, Alexandria and Rome itself in later antiquity all shared with Carthage, a fame which derived from being this kind of Mediterranean centre. For those who go to Carthage and see the ruins, there is the charm of its position, lovely spot by the sea, and for those who like something a bit stronger, there is the association with the dark habit of child sacrifice. We have accounts of the practice of child sacrifice in Carthage from the Greeks and Romans, but mostly what we know about the child sacrifice is from the remains in the sacrificial precinct, the Tophet as it's called, after a name in the Bible, where the little monuments were set up to these children that were sacrificed. The origins of Punic Carthage can be traced to the beginning of the millennium before Christ, to present-day Lebanon, then known as Phoenicia. This was the collective name for a group of small independent states dominated by the cities of Sidon and Tyre. The Phoenicians were traders, a sea-going people, whose commercial contacts stretched as far as the Atlantic coast of Spain. It was this desire to trade that led this ancient people to set up small settlements along the North African coast and elsewhere. One of these would become the great city of Punic Carthage. Carthage developed into an important and prosperous city for three main reasons, really. First of all, its position in the Mediterranean. It overlooks the point where the Mediterranean narrows into a sort of straight between Italy or Sicily and North Africa, only 88 miles at the narrowest. And so it sits at a sort of crossroads for navigation in the Mediterranean, going east-west or north-south from North Africa up to Italy. Second reason is its moment in history. It was established when, essentially, civilisation, developed cities, existed in the east of the Mediterranean. When resources, or a particularly valuable resource, metal, and in particular tin and silver, was available at the extreme west end of the Mediterranean in Spain. So ships were sailing right along the Mediterranean to get this resource and Carthage was obviously well placed on that route. And then the third reason would be the population of Carthage. That it had the population to exploit these resources commercially and they exploited the possibilities of their city and made it successful in that way. Tradition says that Carthage was founded by Elisa, a Phoenician princess from Tyre, also known as Dido. According to the Greek historian Timaeus, Dido fled Tyre following the murder of her husband by her brother King Pygmalion. Fearing for her life, she left Phoenicia with a fleet of ships to seek a new beginning in Africa. Arriving in what is now known as northern Tunisia in 814 BC, she struck a deal with the local tribesmen. She would buy from them as much land as could be enclosed within the hide of an ox. By cutting the ox hide into thin strips, Dido and her entourage were able to acquire Bursa Hill and its adjoining beach. This cunningly acquired territory would be named after the Phoenician for The story that we know from the ancient historian Timaeus of the origins of Carthage is particularly interesting because it's such a common Greek type of story about the origins of an overseas settlement. It's just the kind of story with which the Greeks who founded cities up and down the Mediterranean explained how they had come to be in new places so far away from their homeland. If it was a story about an ordinary Greek city, it wouldn't be particularly interesting in its own right. It's so like so many others. But Carthage, of course, doesn't sound like a Greek city. It's a city belonging to the Phoenicians. It speaks a language which is different from Greek. It worships different gods. But what this story reminds us of is that if you thought about who you were as a people, if you thought about what your city meant and how powerful it was, if you wanted to place it in the tradition of other cities that had succeeded, by the 5th century BC and certainly by the 4th and the 3rd when Timaeus is writing, you needed a story which fitted in to the kinds of ways in which Greeks talked about their city foundations. And what this story shows us about the Carthaginians is that gradually as time went by, they became culturally blended with the rest of the Mediterranean world while retaining their own sense of their identity, while retaining the Phoenician language and Phoenician religion. Their pursuit of any trading opportunity was remarkable. In the 5th century BC, an admiral named Hanno led an expedition to the west coast of Africa. There is strong evidence that he journeyed as far as the Gulf of Guinea. If he did make such a journey, it would remain unsurpassed for 2,000 years. His compatriot, Hamilco, led a similar voyage to the north, looking for tin in particular. It's quite possible that his fleet journeyed as far as Ireland in their quest for profit and wealth. Hanno's voyage was really something of an exception. The vast majority of the trading voyages were much more local. They were within the Mediterranean or just going through the Straits of Gibraltar to Cadiz or the northern coast of Morocco. The Carthaginian voyages up to Britain, up to Cornwall in pursuit of Cornish tin, probably at some moment, Carthaginian sailors did get to Cornwall. But generally, this was not something that happened. The way the trade probably worked was that the Carthaginians from Carthage traded with other Carthaginian people based in Spain, Cadiz, for example, the west coast of Spain, who traded further up the Atlantic coast up to modern France. And then people from the west coast of France would actually have made the sea crossing to Cornwall. So it's trade in several stages, not directly from Carthage itself. Next to Carthage's commercial harbour was the circular military harbour, the base of a feared and powerful fleet. It's not surprising that Carthaginian prowess in the construction and use of cargo vessels was matched by their abilities with ships of war. It was the Phoenicians who first introduced the system of deploying oarsmen in banks, one above the other. These were the famous viremes and triremes. Time and time again, these fighting vessels would sail from Carthage's military harbour to engage the enemy of the day. Punic Carthage was frequently at war. The desire to secure trade routes and colonies led to many conflicts with rival Mediterranean powers. The Greeks and later the Romans engaged Carthage in some of the bloodiest battles of the ancient world. The Greek Sicilian colony of Syracuse was a regular foe. Sicily isn't just the biggest island of the Mediterranean, it's also slap-bang in the middle of the Mediterranean. So throughout the last 2,500 years or so, it has always been a flashpoint because its north coast faces towards the western Mediterranean, its south coast faces towards Africa, and the east coast, and this is quite important, faces towards Greece, which means that from the 8th century BC on, there were a number of very important Greek cities on the east coast of Sicily. The most important of these was Syracuse, which in many respects was as important as Athens was in what we call mainland Greece. And the west of Sicily is only a matter of about 80 miles away from North Africa. So not surprisingly, again throughout history, those who hold power in North Africa have sought to control the western end of Sicily. Those on the eastern side of Sicily have looked towards Greece, have looked for most of the first millennium AD towards the Greek-speaking world, towards Byzantium later on, while the northern side of Sicily looks towards Western Europe. So it isn't surprising that there are constant conflicts here. So Sicily had constant struggles between the Carthaginians from North Africa in the west, the Greeks in the east, and with the rise of Rome to power in Italy during the second half of the 4th century BC, we have a third element, the Romans. So it isn't really surprising that Greeks, Romans and Carthaginians should have fought over Sicily. 4th century BC was a time of almost continuous conflict between the Greeks and the Carthaginians. Ancient authors describe battles of terrible cruelty. In 397 BC, the Carthaginian colony of Motia was besieged and its entire population wiped out by the Greeks. This slaughter was in response to an earlier atrocity when 3,000 Greeks were tortured and killed by the Carthaginians. In the history of Punic-Carthaginian war, incidents like these were regular occurrences. One of the factors that contributed to this was Carthaginian religion. They worshipped a number of Phoenician gods, most notably the husband and wife deities Baal and Tarnet. The importance of the goddess Tarnet to the population can still be seen today in the precinct known as the Tophet Sanctuary. Tarnet's symbol can be seen everywhere on the stelae or tombstones placed here over 2,000 years ago. This ancient place reveals why the Carthaginians were so despised by their neighbours. Here were placed thousands of small urns, each containing the ashes of sacrifices offered to the gods. The sacrificial victims of the Carthaginians were children. Most of the remains in the urns, we can actually tell how old they are from the teeth. Bones of infants, when they're cremated, they're just dust in many cases or very tiny fragments. The teeth give you a very good indication of how old they are, so this is how we know how old they are. What seems to have sometimes happened is that you find the remains of a neonatal child and a two-year-old. This has been interpreted as meaning that the neonatal child was a second or third child that was promised before birth, that when this child was born it was going to be offered up in sacrifice to the gods. Maybe it was born stillborn, so the family had to then choose the next oldest child between neonatal and two years being a fairly natural gap in childbearing. But on this whole question of child sacrifice, there is controversy between experts. There are some people who say that the children weren't actually sacrificed live, that these were children who had already died of natural causes. Infant mortality must have been high then, as in many other early societies, and that they were offered to the gods. Others say they were certainly sacrificed as live children. Our general knowledge of the ancient Mediterranean world, thinking of the Greeks and Romans as well, would lead us to think that probably they were actually sacrificed live. For example, in Roman law, parents could not be held guilty of murder if they killed a child that was under a year old, so even up to a year old you weren't properly a human being in Roman law. And this concept probably applied in Carthage. The difference in Carthage from the Greeks and Romans was that the killing of children was institutionalised as a public act of devotion to the gods. The practice of child sacrifice remains the most notorious aspect of Carthaginian religious life, but their belief in its beneficial effect was strong. This was proved infamously in 307 BC. In that year, Syracusian troops landed in North Africa with the intention of conquering Carthage itself. Terrified, the priest leaders of the city prayed for the intercession of Baal. To appease him, no fewer than 500 children were strangled in public. They were then burnt and their ashes deposited in the Tophet Sanctuary. Although horrifying, the Carthaginians believed their procedure worked. For reasons still obscure, the Syracusian forces withdrew from Africa. One of the reasons why it is thought that child sacrifice continued in Carthage and indeed seems to have been done increasingly as time went on, rather than decreasing, was that it was socially convenient, that it was a form of postnatal family planning. Families could reduce their size so that their inheritance and wealth was not split up and reduced too greatly. And at the same time, by carrying out this religious act of devotion, it meant that they were favoured publicly by their gods and were seen to be special within that society. Not all aspects of Carthaginian religion were so gruesome. The deity Eshmun was venerated as the god of good health. In his honour, a magnificent temple was constructed. Located on Bursa Hill, the Temple of Eshmun was possibly the finest architectural achievement of Punic Carthage. No trace of it remains today, but it is mentioned often by ancient writers. Its enormous 60-step staircase was its most striking feature. It can almost be considered a wonder of the ancient world. In the 3rd century BC, this temple dominated the skyline of a city at the peak of its powers. Prosperous and stable, the city of Carthage was the centre of a far wider area of influence. In the hinterland, agriculture thrived. Figs, citrus fruits and olives were grown. So was the date palm, which was Carthage's emblem. This can be seen on many surviving coins of the age. Animal husbandry also flourished. Cattle, sheep, poultry and horses were reared, while Carthaginian honey and beeswax were famed throughout the world. In the politics of the region, the city's influence spread across North Africa and the Western Mediterranean. It was, undoubtedly, a great world power. Around this time, a new power began to rise whose military forces would bring disaster. This power was Rome. As well as in the territory immediately around the city, the empire that Carthage gradually built up, in other words, was a commercial empire which was run in increasingly innovative ways for the profit of the Carthaginian aristocracy, the political class there. The trouble was that in being a Mediterranean hub and in increasingly exploiting all the economic opportunities of the parts of the Mediterranean world with which Carthage had contact, the city wasn't alone. In Italy, since the 5th century BC, maybe since the 6th century BC, another state, another city, had been doing very much the same and that city was Rome. Rome and Carthage, already in the 6th century BC, had a pact not to trespass on each other's commercial territory. As the 4th century went by, the Romans, rather like the Carthaginians, began to run the parts of Italy that they had contact with, increasingly for their own profit. So, as time went by, Carthage came to have a rival, both in terms of its Mediterranean horizons and in terms of the organisation of territory for productive purposes. In 264 BC, war broke out between the two sides, with Syracuse again the flashpoint. For Carthage, the conflict began well. Rome's experience of naval warfare was nothing compared to its enemies. A succession of Roman fleets were either destroyed in battle or shipwrecked. This resulted in a catastrophic loss of life. While in 255 BC, 17,000 Romans were killed in a single battle in North Africa. In 17 years of war, Rome lost 15% of its population of adult men. Unfortunately for Carthage, the Romans had not lost their resolve. At the Battle of the Aegetes Islands in 241 BC, a new Roman fleet finally triumphed over their enemy, bringing victory in the first of the Punic Wars. The crucial thing about why the Romans won their battles against the Carthaginians was one of the factors that made the Romans win all of their battles. It's not to do with tactics, it's not so much to do with training, it's to do with a Roman peculiarity. The Romans were very good at actually killing people in single hand-to-hand combat. The Romans emphasised the fact that in warfare, you don't just need other things that you do need. The support of the gods is very, very important, of course, and having a good commander is very important too. But the first of the virtues in Roman eyes, and this is explicitly stated in speeches that the Romans themselves make, is the ability to actually stick bits of metal into your opponent. And in Roman history, it is actual hand-to-hand fighting that is what the Romans are best at. So that's why the Romans managed to win victories, both at sea and on land. They have the grappling hooks with which they effectively turn a sea battle from an exercise in skill and seamanship into an exercise at fighting on land. And in that kind of a battle, these unspeakably awful Romans, and they're described by ancient writers as unspeakably awful, are just much, much better at simply killing the enemy. The two subsequent Punic Wars would seal the fate of Carthage. Fighting resumed in 218 BC with the famous Carthaginian Hannibal the dominant figure. He secured his place in legend by leading an army from Carthaginian territory in Spain into Italy itself. His march over the Alps with an army of men and elephants is a story still told today. Once in Italy, he proved himself a brilliant general. At Cannae in 216 BC, his forces defeated the Romans in one of the bloodiest battles ever. Over 50,000 Romans may have been killed, compared with less than 6,000 on Hannibal's side. However, Hannibal's brilliance as general would not be enough to win the war. The Romans adopted a long-term strategy, refusing to engage Hannibal's troops in open combat. In addition, the Roman general Scipio destroyed Carthage's forces in Spain, cutting off their supply lines. With Hannibal now isolated in Italy, Scipio decided to force a final battle. He led an army to attack Carthage itself, hoping to lure his enemy back from Italy to lead his homeland's defence. His hope was realised. On 25 October 202 BC, the forces of Scipio and Hannibal met at the Battle of Zama. It was the great Carthaginian general's first and only defeat. For his nation, it was the beginning of the end. The Romans imposed a humiliating peace settlement. Carthage lost her navy, her colonies and much of her own territory. She was also forbidden to wage war under any circumstances. Carthage was completely defeated in the Second Punic War. It gave up. But it wasn't the end. Rome didn't choose to destroy Carthage at that point. There was, as it turned out, another 50 years of history for Carthage. And the remarkable thing is the speed with which Carthage recovered, and not just recovered to its former levels of power and prosperity, but rapidly increased in size, in prosperity and once again in power to a level which was perhaps greater than anything that had been seen before in the third century. At the same time, in the aftermath of the Second Punic War, the Mediterranean was continuing to grow in prosperity. Both the dominions of Rome and those that were left to Carthage were increasingly engaged in trade and in the sorts of profitable agriculture that the Carthaginians had been specialising in. And it's for these reasons that a new clash between Rome and Carthage was probably inevitable. In 154 BC, neighbouring Numidia began to annex Carthaginian territory, including valuable farmland. Carthage protested to Rome, but the Romans did nothing. Eventually, the Numidian provocations became too much. Carthage fought back, fully aware of the inevitable response from Rome. In 149 BC, 84,000 Roman troops arrived in Africa on a mission of destruction. Carthage was quickly besieged. The city's population resolved to fight to the end. Famously, the city's women cut off their hair to make ropes for catapults. For three long years, the siege continued. Then, in 146 BC, the Romans broke through. What followed is barely credible. In ten days, the city was taken. House by house, street by street, the battle raged in a scene from hell. Buildings were set ablaze, the dead piled high in the streets. Soon, only the Temple of Eshmun remained in the hands of Carthage. Ten days into the battle, General Hasdrubal surrendered after the likely loss of over half a million people. The final dramatic act of Punic Carthage came when Hasdrubal's wife learnt of the surrender. Disgusted with what she felt was her husband's cowardice, she left the temple and threw herself and her children into the city fires. With this gesture of defiance, the story of Punic Carthage reached its horrifying conclusion. In the middle of the second century BC, the Romans decided that the way to make their mark on history, the way to establish once and for all that the people who decided whether ancient cities had a future or not in the Mediterranean, the people who made that decision were going to be the Romans and the Romans only. And in 146, they made that absolutely clear in choosing within a few months of each other to destroy one 600-year-old city from the western Mediterranean and one 600-year-old city from the eastern Mediterranean. And Carthage was the city in the west. Corinth was the city in the east. And both cities were not just destroyed, humiliated, defeated, forced to surrender, but symbolically annihilated so that their histories were seen to come to a formal end. The destruction was total. The city was razed to the ground and its few surviving inhabitants condemned to slavery. The ground where it had stood was cursed and, according to some sources, covered with salt. The once massive city became a deserted wasteland, but not for long. In the 1st century BC, Caesar visited the ruins. He announced that a new city should be built there. Under his successor Augustus, his wishes were carried out. The Romans refounded Carthage having destroyed it because they had knocked out what is probably the best location for a major city in the central part of North Africa. Carthage overlooked this narrow part of the sea from Sicily and Italy so it was an obvious place for a major harbour. And it was also in immediate contact with one of the most fertile agricultural areas of North Africa where both wheat and, from slightly further afield in Tunisia, olive oil were produced in enormous quantities and shipped over to Rome. Plus, when the Romans destroyed Carthage, they had knocked out a great population and cultural centre in North Africa. It was where the centres of some of the major religious cults were. You can't do that and leave it with a vacuum so they had to put something in its place. And so eventually Roman Carthage comes back partly to be a place for Roman colonists but also very much to re-establish the city for the North Africans under Roman control. In 29 BC, 3,000 Roman colonists arrived. The founders of the new city of Colonia Julia Carthago Over the next centuries, this city would be known by the same name as its predecessor. These were the days of Roman Carthage. Unlike its predecessor, much of it can still be seen today. The first and second Carthages displayed similarities and differences. The early centuries AD saw Roman Carthage become a large and prosperous city. Like its predecessor, shipping was important as a source of wealth. The famous harbours were enlarged. Agriculture flourished as before. And the layout of Roman Carthage had much in common with Punic Carthage. The main difference between the two cities was the essentially peaceful life enjoyed by the inhabitants of the Roman city. Efficient Roman administration contributed to this as did the abolition of the old bloodthirsty Punic religion. The Africans who began to inhabit the new city adopted the Roman pantheon of gods. The Romans took over the Carthaginian gods and goddesses and essentially allowed their religion, well, most of their religion to take place. They didn't like the practice of child sacrifice. It went on for a while, it seems, after the Roman conquest of Africa but eventually died out slowly. But, for example, Tanit, the principal goddess of Carthage, became, well, two Roman goddesses. I mean, well, a whole number of Roman goddesses, but two principally. One was Juno, one of the Capitoline Triad, one of the principal goddesses of Rome. And this was politically convenient to the Romans because they could put one of their principal goddesses into Carthage and she immediately was associated with the principal goddess of Carthage. But more widely, Tanit became a less known Roman goddess called Caelestis. And there are cults to Caelestis, well, over North Africa and in Rome itself. And Caelestis meant, effectively, Tanit. Baal became Saturn, who was also a very old Roman deity. And this was essentially done with the other Carthaginian gods. Undoubtedly, agriculture was as important to Roman Carthage as its Punic predecessor. Roman food requirements resulted in annual shipments of up to half a million tons of grain from North Africa to Rome. Large estates grew up where slavery was often used as the source of labor. For the owners of such estates, though, life was far from hard. Against an essentially peaceful political background, it was a good time to be a wealthy man. In Tunis' Bardo Museum can be seen the famous Lord Julius mosaic. This is a depiction of life on a 4th century estate. The wealthy landowner can be seen with his servants around him, looking almost like a king. His wife, too, is shown in a regal disposition as she receives a necklace from a maidservant, while all around are scenes of everyday life on the land. Mosaics such as this are amongst the finest artistic achievements of Roman Carthage. Many can still be seen both in their original location and in modern museums. Although many have been badly damaged over the centuries, they offer a fine illustration of life in those days. The continuing importance of seagoing is a theme that occurs time and time again. Wild animals can also be seen in many of the works that survive, with sea creatures a popular source of subject matter. Images such as these can be legitimately considered works of art in their own right. For the ancient historian, however, it is the depictions of everyday life in Carthage that provide the most significant information. In the centre of the Lord Julius Mosaic is seen the villa of the landowner. There can be no doubt that this was a luxurious residence. Confirmation of the fine homes enjoyed by the wealthy is also provided by archaeology. The remains of several fine Roman homes can be seen today in an area known as the Park of the Roman Villas. This site, from the later period of Roman Carthage's history, is a popular destination for visitors. Here, the love of floor mosaics can be clearly seen, as can the Roman enthusiasm for straight roadways. This would have been an exclusive area in which to live, although this may not be immediately apparent from the surviving stones. The modern visitor can easily imagine what these buildings looked like during their period of habitation. The physical and historical evidence, however, leaves us in no doubt that these were once fine residences for the well-off citizens of Carthage. Homes such as these would have been enjoyed not only by native Romans, but by Romanised Africans. The Roman system of administration enabled Africans to play a full role in the life of the city. In the second century, in particular, native Africans began to excel in the legal profession and in academia. The University of Carthage was noted throughout the empire. The great African Christian Saint Augustine was educated there. Perhaps because of this openness, the history of Roman Carthage in its first centuries is free from major political upheavals and war. In comparison with Punic Carthage, the Roman city's existence seems almost serene. With the absence of the war's destructive forces, attention was instead focused on the construction of great buildings. Of these, perhaps none were greater than the Antonine Baths. Completed in AD 146, during the reign of Emperor Antoninus Pius, the baths named after him were almost unrivaled in the Roman Empire. Their remains are still clearly visible today. Though substantial in itself, this surviving structure represents only the basement of what was once a triumph of engineering and architecture. The Antonine Baths in Carthage were the fourth largest building in the Roman world. Only some of the really great baths in Rome, like the Baths of Caracalla and Diocletian, were bigger. When you went to the baths, you entered a place where you could change and leave your clothes. And then you had a choice of bathing experience. You could go to hot, humid, wet heat and sweat. You could go to hot, dry heat and feel very hot and dry. Or you could go to various types of warm and cold baths. The way the baths were heated was underfloor heating. Either brick pillars, or I think in the case of the Antonine Baths they're actually made of stone, support the floors which are suspended above the ground. And then there are furnaces outside and the hot air from the furnaces is led in under the floors and then piped up through the walls so that the whole structure is heated up. In the Antonine Baths, there was also a huge open-air swimming pool actually linked with the sea because the bars are located right on the seafront. But one of the most spectacular features of the Antonine Baths was the huge covered hall at the centre, which was very, very lavishly decorated architecturally. It had huge marble columns 40 feet high. And this was a place where you could hang around and socialise and engage in local politics and do these sorts of things. This wonderful construction was a marvel of the Roman Age in Africa. For centuries, Carthaginians enjoyed its facilities. For those citizens, the baths provided more than leisure. They were an integral part of the city's social life where both important issues and everyday gossip could be discussed. It was not uncommon for a citizen to spend most of the day within the baths complex. There is no doubt that for many wealthy citizens, leisure activities took up a great part of their daily life. Other surviving physical remains confirm this. Close to the site of the Antonine Baths are located the remains of one of Roman Carthage's two theatres. Like the baths, this structure was completed in the second century and likewise provided a focus for the social life of the city. Built to a typical Roman semicircular design and with an audience capacity of some 5,000, it's not difficult for the modern visitor to imagine performances here in Roman times. Carthaginian citizens would have enjoyed a wide variety of artistic work. The words of the author Apuleius are worth recalling to give a flavour of the artistic achievements that took place here. An African, who also graduated from the University of Carthage, he once stood here prior to a production of his work Florides. Addressing the audience, he outlined his view on the purpose of a theatre such as this. In this auditorium, what is important is not the marble paving, the architecture of the proscenium or the colonnade of the stage, neither is it the height of the upper galleries, the brightly coloured box seats or the other seats in a semicircle. It is not the fact that one day a mime will play a burlesque in the same place where on other days a tragic actor will recite. A comic actor will speak dialogue, a tightrope walker will risk his life or a play actor will gesticulate. In other words, all kinds of performers present themselves to the public, each according to his own brand of art. Apuleius' words provide a clear indication that culture and the arts played an important part in the life of Roman Carthage. But for many citizens, entertainment was a far less cultured experience. Chariot racing took place before enthusiastic crowds at the circus, while the remains of Carthage's amphitheatre are another fine relic of the Roman way of life in those days. Places of spectacle, the theatre, the circus, the amphitheatre, were very important to the Roman way of life. First of all, as a source of mass entertainment, the amphitheatre has sometimes rudely been associated with a football ground in that you saw contests between gladiators and people like that. So they were a form of entertainment which had wide appeal. Entertainments there were paid for by local bigwigs who wished to further their own political careers. And one way of doing this was to ingratiate themselves with the population by laying on particularly super performances in the amphitheatre or circus. It was very important for these bigwigs to do this so that they established their position and developed their careers. And so this is very much saying, look, I paid for these games and they were pretty exotic and special, you know, I'm a pretty exotic and special guy. Here, gladiators would fight each other and the famous bestiari would risk their lives against the fiercest of wild beasts. In this arena, to huge acclaim, men would take on animals like bear, leopard and lion. Creatures like these will also be led into the arena for a far darker purpose. The public death of criminals. Many surviving mosaics depict their terrible fate before an enthusiastic audience. In the 3rd century AD, this same cruel treatment would be meted out not only to offenders, but to another group of people. These were followers of a new religion that began to sweep over North Africa. Christianity. Several early Christian martyrs met their deaths here, condemned for refusing to accede to the cult of the emperor practiced at the time. In AD 203, saints Felicity and Perpetua became the most famous Christians to die in this amphitheater. Cast into the arena with fellow Christians, the two women actually survived the initial engagement with leopards, bears, bulls and other fearsome beasts. Their deaths would eventually come from a gladiator's sword. It is perhaps in this taste for violence that the characters of the Roman Carthaginian were similar to their Punic predecessors. We can only guess at how many unfortunates met their death here in the name of entertainment. The deaths of the Christian martyrs in places like this failed to stop the spread of Christianity. This was despite continuing persecutions. By the 4th century it was the dominant belief system in North Africa. In Carthage, this period saw the creation of the fine villas and mosaics that can still be appreciated today. But the relative peace of the first two centuries AD was now beginning to fade into history. The new Christian church was riddled with dispute and schism. As the Roman Empire itself began to crumble, rivalries and rebellions manifested themselves across the Roman world. This culminated in the split between the Western Empire based at Rome and the Eastern Empire based at Constantinople. In addition to these internal pressures, Rome came under increasing threat from barbarian forces such as the Huns, Goths and Vandals. It was the Vandals who would start the process leading to the end of the Second Carthage. A tribe of barbarians originally based in Germany, they spread from their homeland through what is now France and Spain before crossing into North Africa in 429 AD. Under their king Geseric, the Vandals captured Carthage in 439 AD. Unlike the Romans of 146 BC, however, they chose not to destroy it. Instead, it appears that the Vandals simply settled into the fine lifestyle that so characterizes Roman Carthage's history. Despite this, the Vandal invasion marks the end of the glorious age of the city. In 533 AD, the city was reclaimed by the forces of the Eastern Roman Empire. The emperor at the time was the Great Justinian and Carthage was renamed Colonia Justiniana Carthagio in his honor. The return of the empire may have eventually initiated a return to Carthaginian importance. But the rise of a second great new religion ended any hope of a new golden age. Following the death of Muhammad in 632 AD, the Muslims began to spread across Northern Africa. In AD 697, Carthage was seized by Arab forces. The following year, it was destroyed for good. Carthage would not rise again. And the story, which began some 1,500 years before, had finally come to an end. The story remains one of the most fascinating in the history of the ancient world.