v53_0153 - ZEUGITANIA - CARTAGE Unité, (MB, Æ 24)

ZEUGITANA - CARTHAGE

(400-300 BC)

Carthage was founded in 814 BC, according to tradition by settlers from Tyre. Virgil immortalized the deadly conflict that was to oppose Carthage and Rome in the Aeneid, featuring Aeneas, who wanted to go to Italy, and the queen of Carthage, Dido, who wanted to keep him with him. Before committing suicide after her departure, she would have launched the curse which was to weigh on Rome and Carthage until the destruction of the second by the first in 146 BC. Between the 5th and 4th centuries BC- C., the most formidable enemies of the Carthaginians in the Western Mediterranean were the Greeks of southern Italy and Sicily. Gelon had already crushed the Carthaginians at Himera in 480 BC and Agathokles, who was to take the title of king in 304 BC, invaded Africa in 310 BC. Finally defeated in 307, he had to retire to Sicily and sign peace with the Carthaginians.