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The Topography of Punic Carthage

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

D. B. Harden
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Extract

In the first half of the nineteenth century, when the Barbary corsairs were finally laid low, a great impetus was given to North African research, and numerous scholars visited and wrote about Carthage. Valiant efforts were made at that time to correlate the statements of ancient authors, chiefly Appian, Diodorus, Justin, Polybius, and Strabo, both with each other and with the existing topography of the peninsula, but the theories propounded had usually little virtue save that of originality and imagination. If excavation was undertaken at all (as it was by Davis, for instance, and Beulé), Roman buildings were often mistaken for Punic, so that elaborate plans of Carthage like Davis's2—to mention but one—are no longer of much consequence.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 9 , Issue 25 , October 1939 , pp. 1 - 12
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1939

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References

page 1 note 1 The standard work on the history and antiquities of Punic Carthage is Gsell, S., Histoire ancienne de l'Afrique du Nord, vols, i–iv (Paris, 1921–1924)Google Scholar, in the pages of which will be found a full bibliography of everything published before about 1920.

page 1 note 2 Davis, N., Carthage and her Remains (London, 1861), plan opp. p. 1.Google Scholar

page 1 note 3 Those who argue against the generally accepted topography (as explained on pp. 3, 11 f.) make much of the reported interdict (Appian, viii. 135) against building a town on the actual site of Punic Carthage.It is very doubtful whether the realism of Augustan colonists would have allowed such an interdict to prevent them choosing the best available site on the peninsula for their new city.

page 3 note 1 A comparison of an engraving of the site published by Davis in 1861, or of photographs taken in the early years of the present century (e.g. Cagnat, R., Carthage, Timgad, Tebessa (Paris, 1912), fig. on p. 15), with PL I, B tells its own tale.And even PL I, B, taken in 1924, by no means represents the state of development which has been reached to-day.Google Scholar

page 3 note 2 Yet see Pinza's, article in Monumenti Antichi, xxx (1925), 5 ff.Google Scholar for an attempt to place Byrsa at La Goulette and the ports in the Lake of Tunis.

page 4 note 1 Gsell adds that nothing archaeological that can be dated before the seventh century has yet been found at Carthage. However, since he wrote, some pottery which may be dated to the eighth century b.c. has been found in the Precinct of Tanit at Salammbo (Harden, , A. J. A. xxxi (1927), 298Google Scholar; id., Iraq, iv. 59 ff.). In any case this argument from the absence of finds is highly unsafe. As far as I am aware nothing belonging to a date earlier than the sixth century has yet been found at Utica; yet no one doubts that Utica was an early foundation.

page 5 note 1 In this neighbourhood Babelon (Carthage, p. 9)Google Scholar and Gauckler, (Revue archéologique, 1902, ii. 370)Google Scholar place the earliest settlement at Carthage, though they were thinking not of the ninth-century foundation, but of the putative earlier one (cp. Gsell, i. 379).

page 5 note 2 Poinssot, L. and Lantier, R., Rev. de l'hist. des religions, 1923, pp. 32 ff.Google Scholar; Kelsey, F. W., Excavations at Carthage (Macmillan Co., N.Y., 1926), pp. 33 ff.Google Scholar; Harden, D. B., A.J.A. xxxi (1927), 297Google Scholar ff.; id., Iraq, iv. 59 ff.Google Scholar

page 6 note 1 Iraq, iv. 86.Google Scholar

page 6 note 2 It should be pointed out that the Sebkret er Riana was an open bay in ancient times.The tongue of land running north-west from Gamart is of comparatively recent formation.

page 7 note 1 Estrup, H. F. J., Lineae Topographicae Carthaginis Tyriae (1821)Google Scholar. For reproductions of several early plans of Carthage, including Estrup's, see de la Malle, Dureau, Recherches sur la topographie de Carthage (Paris, 1835).Google Scholar

page 7 note 2 Gsell devotes the first 92 pages of the second volume of his history to a full analysis of the evidence as it existed in 1921. To Gsell's bibliography (ii. 1 ff.) should be added the recent articles by Howard and Pinza. (see p. 3, n. 2, and p. 12, n. 1).

page 9 note 1 The Hill of St. Louis is quite as large as this if its lower slopes, which spread well out into the plain on the west, south, and east, be included.

page 10 note 1 Audollent, A., Carthage romaine (Paris, 1901), pp. 154 ff.Google Scholar

page 11 note 1 Whitaker, , Motya (London, 1921), pp. 185 ff.Google Scholar

page 12 note 1 Following Gsell, ii. 55, despite two recent efforts to argue that they were at La Goulette: Howard, E. C., Où était Carthage (Algiers, 1925)Google Scholar, and Pinza's article (see p. 3, n. 2)—a longer and more reasoned statement of the case.