Tyre & Carthage: The History of the Phoenician Cities that Dominated the Mediterranean for Centuries

Across the eastern Mediterranean there has been discovered a great number of objects whose appearance or materials are extraneous to local cultures, whether it was an Egyptian amulet in Greece, a Greek vase in Africa, or thousands of strange amulets in Gibraltar. The remains are evidence that a huge amount of goods was once moved from one land to another, systematically transported and traded across the Mediterranean by the ancient commercial network of the Phoenicians. Beginning in the 13th century BCE, and lasting for more than a millennium, this civilization dominated the most important body of water known to the ancients. With their formidable ships and skills in trading, they made a name for themselves by trading between Egypt, Greece, Rome, Carthage, Sardinia, Spain, and eventually all the way to the Atlantic Ocean, establishing themselves as the undisputed lords of the sea. One of the most crucial cities in the system was hidden beneath the Greek, Roman, and Crusader ruins of Lebanon: the ancient city of Tyre. "Seated at entrance to the sea," according to the prophet Ezekiel, Tyre was constructed on a purportedly impenetrable island. Tyre was considered to be one of the oldest and wealthiest metropolises of the world, and indeed, the city can be directly associated with some of the most important stages in the history of mankind. Although Carthage by far preferred to exert economic pressure and influence before resorting to direct military power (and even went so far as to rely primarily on mercenary armies paid with its vast wealth for much of its history, it nonetheless produced a number of outstanding generals, from the likes of Hanno Magnus to, of course, the great bogeyman of Roman nightmares himself: Hannibal. Carthage was able to go from a minor Phoenician settlement to one of the most powerful trading empires of antiquity.