About Tunisia - Tunisia Guide & Information

As natural staging posts along their route between their homeland, Tyre, in modern Lebanon and silver mines of southern Spain, the Phoenicians began establishing settlement along the Tunisian coast in 1,100BC. By 814BC, their chain of ports included Carthage, a name derived from the Phoenician ‘qart hadasht’ (new city).

Perhaps prompted by the increasing presence of the Greeks in the western Mediterranean, Carthage soon took over from Tyre, becoming the metropolis of the Phoenician world, and by the end of 600BC, one of the main powers of the Mediterranean.

During the second and third centuries BC, Carthage came to blows with Rome, one of the other great powers of the Mediterranean, in the infamous Punic Wars. Despite successful battles waged by Hannibal, the Punic general who had lead his army, backed by elephants over the Alps into Italy, Carthage suffered in the last war, and in 146BC the city finally fell to the Romans.