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By the beginning of the 6th Century BCE, Tyre, the mother city of Carthage, was facing the threat of the Babylonian Empire, so that it could no longer defend the Phoenician colonies in the Western Mediterranean basin. Carthage, recently independent, took over the role of protector of the other Phoenician colonies, thus laying the foundations of the Carthaginian Empire.
Context
In the 7th Century, Tyre and the other Phoenician city-States came under the domination of the Assyrian Empire, while remaining largely autonomous. The weakening of Tyre enabled Carthage to take its independence around 650.
Tyre was later besieged by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, from 586 to 573. Nebuchadnezzar never managed to conquer the city, but the Tyrians gave themselves up after 13 years of siege.
Carthage: protector of the Phoenician cities
In 580, a group of Greek colonists from Rhodes and Cnidus, led by Pentathlos of Cnidus, tried to establish a Greek colony in Sicily, at the site of the future city of Lilybaeum (modern-day Marsala). While other Greek colonies, like Syracuse, had already been established before, they were far away from the Phoenician cities to the West of the island and weren’t a threat for them. This new Greek colony was surrounded by Phoenician territory, very close to the city of Motya.
The Phoenicians in Sicily decided to get together, in order to expel this new Greek colony from their zone of influence. As Tyre, under siege by the Babylonians, could not come to their aid, Carthage took the leadership of the united Phoenician forces.
At this time, the Greek city of Selinunte was at war against the Elymians (an indigenous people of Sicily) of Segesta, who were allied with the Phoenicians of Motya. The Greek newcomers decided to send support to their kinsmen in Selinunte, but they were defeated by the Phoenician-Elymian alliance. Their leader, Pentathlos of Cnidus, was killed in battle. The survivors fled and founded a Greek colony in Lipari, in the Aeolian Islands.
The Carthaginian Empire is born
After this episode, Carthage established itself as the protector of the Phoenician colonies in the Western Mediterranean basin, a role that enabled them to gradually take control of the other Phoenician colonies.
While the Phoenicians were a trading civilisation, who founded colonies and bought local products from the surrounding peoples, the Carthaginians broke with the peaceful Phoenician tradition by using military force to extend their Empire.
The Carthaginian conquest of North Africa started during the reign of King Malchus (556-550). Carthage took control of the former Phoenician colonies on the Gibraltar Strait and in Tripolitania. After Oea (Tripoli) had been taken by the Greeks of Cyrenaica, the Carthaginians reconquered the city. Utica, the first Phoenician colony in Africa, came under Carthaginian control quite late, around 540.
Carthaginian ambitions went beyond Africa. A military campaign in Sicily, probably after the Phoenicians on the island called on Carthage for help against Greek expansion, enabled Carthage to integrate the Phoenician cities in Sicily into their Empire.
Around 550, Malchus was sent to Sardinia, to support the local Phoenician population gainst the indigenous Nuragic people. He won several victories that enabled him to establish Punic colonies on the island.
Around 540, the new King Mago of Carthage made an alliance with the Etruscans. Together, they attacked Alalia, a colony founded in Corsica by the Greeks of Massalia (Marseille). The Phocaeans were defeated and forced to abandon Alalia, which came under Carthaginian rule.
Around 530, the Tartessian civilisation, an important trading partner of Carthage in Spain, fell, enabling the Carthaginians to extend their influence in Spain.
From 480 on, Carthage led several wars against the Greeks of Syracuse, for the control of Sicily. In 397, after Motya was destroyed, the survivors founded the city of Lilybaeum, on the site of the short-lived Greek colony.
Over a century later, in 332, Alexander the Great besieged Tyre and conquered the city. The Phoenician civilisation, once the major power in most of the Mediterranean basin, was now surviving only in the Carthaginian Empire.
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