The olive tree
Oil for the table, for lamps and for perfumes. Tunisia is still one of the world’s leading olive oil producers.
Carthage's economy →
Carthage · Agriculture
The land, the other wealth
Carthage was more than a port: its estates on Cap Bon and along the Medjerda were among the most productive in the Mediterranean.
28books on farming, written in Punic.
146With Carthage destroyed, the Roman Senate still had Mago translated into Latin.
1st c.The agronomist Columella calls him "the father of agriculture".
The vine
On Cap Bon, around Kerkouane; Mago describes growing vines and making raisin wine.
Wheat
The Medjerda plains would later become the "granary" of Rome.
And also
Pomegranate ("Punic apple")FigBeekeepingLivestockPurple dye
≈ 73,000 km²
of African territory under Carthaginian control on the eve of the First Punic War (Decret)
< 25,000 km²
in 146 BC, after half a century of encroachment by Masinissa (Decret)
½
of the harvest demanded from Libyan farmers during the First Punic War (Polybius, I, 72)
310
Agathocles lands in Africa and marches through a countryside covered with estates (Diodorus, XX, 8)
The farming territory
The chora of Carthage
Historians use the Greek word chora — "the countryside" — for the rural territory that fed Carthage. It covered much of present-day Tunisia, a region well enough watered for abundant farming, which Rome would in turn exploit in its province of Africa (Decret).
Carthage soon divided the roles: near the capital, estates devoted to cash crops; further out, cereals, left to Libyan farmers who paid a tribute in kind. In wartime the weight of this tribute drove them to revolt, as in 241 (Polybius, I, 71-72).
When Agathocles of Syracuse landed in 310, his soldiers found a land of irrigated gardens and orchards, country houses, vines and olive trees, herds and horse pastures: Diodorus’ description (XX, 8) is the best ancient witness to these farmlands.
Regions
From the peninsula to the plains
Cap BonA peninsula of estates and small towns such as Kerkouane; the rural sanctuary of Thinissut and the painted tombs of Djebel Mlezza tell of life in this countryside.
MedjerdaThe Bagradas valley, with deep soils suited to wheat: the heart of Rome’s future granary.
EmporiaThe rich lands along the Lesser Syrtis, which Masinissa contested with Carthage from 193 (Livy, XXXIV, 62).
146The remaining territory became the Roman province of Africa, bounded by the fossa regia, the ditch separating it from the Numidian kingdom.
Crops and livestock
Cash orchards, wheat fields, herds: Carthage’s hinterland fed the city and supplied its exports.
Six crops
What was grown
- Wheat — for every level of society
- Olive — improved by grafting
- Vine — wine and raisins
- Fig — eaten fresh or dried
- Almond — an orchard crop
- Pomegranate — the Romans’ "Punic fruit" (malum punicum)
Plants from the East
Selecting, exporting
These species already grew wild in North Africa, but the Phoenicians brought selected stock. Fruit, meat and wine went mostly to the well-off, grain to everyone. Punic farm produce has been found as far away as Greece.
Livestock
A Libyan skill
The native peoples had long raised livestock, especially horses, oxen and mules (Polybius, XII, 3) — providing mounts, draught animals and meat.
HorsesOxenMulesSheep
Farming techniques
Punic agronomy
The treatiseCarthaginian methods were among the most effective of antiquity: Rome adopted them by translating Mago. Columella preserved fragments, including a winemaking process (On Agriculture, XII, 39, 1-2).
Olive grovesPlanted according to precise rules, notably the spacing between trees — standards sometimes still followed today.
GraftingGrafting olive trees raised the productivity of the orchards.
ToolsDepictions of ploughs show equipment that contrasted with traditional Libyan farming (Decret).