From Sicily to the Atlantic, dozens of cities spoke Punic and honoured Melqart. Carthage was not alone: it was the head of a network.
cities and sites featured, from Sicily to Atlantic Morocco
BC: Carthaginians and Etruscans fight the Phocaeans at Alalia (Herodotus, I, 166)
BC: Dionysius of Syracuse takes and destroys Motya (Diodorus, XIV)
Abbé Barthélemy deciphers the Phoenician alphabet thanks to the cippi of Malta
The western Phoenician colonies are often older than Carthage. From the 6th century, as Tyre weakened, Carthage became their leader: it waged war, negotiated treaties and placed some cities under its authority.
The Greek and Latin terms ("allies", "subjects") are those of the victors; no Punic source describes this system from the inside.
The Phoenician network before Carthage →For each city: its founding, its role, and what can be seen there today. Barcid Spain (Cartagena, Saguntum) and the Tunisian sites are on the "Places" page.
23 cities shown
When the Greeks arrived, the Phoenicians gathered in the west of the island, near their Elymian allies (Thucydides, VI, 2). Carthage then fought Syracuse for Sicily for nearly two centuries, before losing it to Rome in 241 (Polybius, I, 62-63).
A fortified islet in the Stagnone lagoon, linked to the shore by a causeway. The main Phoenician port of western Sicily until its destruction by Dionysius of Syracuse in 397.
Today: A museum island (Whitaker Foundation): walls, tophet, "kothon", and the Motya youth found in 1979.
The siege of 397 ↓
Founded to house the survivors of Motya (Diodorus, XXII, 10). It withstood Pyrrhus in 276, then the long Roman siege from 250 to 241 (Polybius, I, 42-48).
Today: In the Baglio Anselmi museum, the wreck of a Punic warship.
See the Places page →"All-harbour" to the Greeks, Ṣyṣ on Punic coins. The base of the Carthaginian army in Sicily: Hamilcar landed here before Himera in 480 (Herodotus, VII, 165-167). The Romans took it in 254 (Polybius, I, 38).
Today: A vast Punic necropolis beneath the modern city; finds in the Antonino Salinas museum.
One of the three Phoenician cities named by Thucydides. In 397 it was among the few towns that stayed loyal to Carthage (Diodorus, XIV, 48). Rebuilt in the 4th century on Monte Catalfano.
Today: A terraced Hellenistic and Roman town above the sea, with a small antiquarium.
An Elymian city with a famous sanctuary of Astarte, the Greeks' Aphrodite. Hamilcar Barca held out there against the Romans from 244 to 241 (Polybius, I, 58).
Today: The Elymian-Punic walls, some of whose blocks bear Phoenician letters carved by the masons.
Hamilcar →Phoenician trading posts from the 8th century, then Carthaginian conquest in the 6th. The island supplied grain and metals; Carthage ceded it to Rome in 238/237, after the Mercenary War (Polybius, I, 88).
On a headland near Pula. Pausanias (X, 17, 5) considered it the oldest town on the island. The Nora Stone, found in 1773, bears the earliest known mention of Sardinia's name.
Today: A seaside archaeological park: Punic quarters beneath the Roman theatre, baths and mosaics.
The Nora Stone ↓At the tip of the Sinis peninsula, facing the Gulf of Oristano. A major Punic city: its tophet and cemeteries have yielded gold jewellery and scarabs in large numbers.
Today: An open archaeological park, dominated by its columns; the finds are in Cagliari and Cabras.
One of the oldest Phoenician foundations in Sardinia, on an island linked to the shore. In 258 the Carthaginian fleet was defeated in Sardinian waters (Polybius, I, 24).
Today: The tophet, chamber tombs cut into the tuff, and the Ferruccio Barreca museum.
The tophet, a debate →A Phoenician post on a hill overlooking the hinterland of Sulcis, turned into a fortress in the Carthaginian period. DNA from its tombs has been compared with that of other Punic sites.
Today: Acropolis, houses, necropolis and tophet, near Carbonia.
Carthage and Africa →A small port on the south coast, near Chia. Known for its sanctuary of the god Bes, where hundreds of terracotta votive figurines were found.
Today: Discreet remains around the Chia tower; figurines in the Cagliari museum.
Gadir, the oldest, remained an autonomous ally; Ebusus, founded by Carthage, stayed loyal to the end; Mallorca and Menorca, never colonised, supplied slingers.
Diodorus (V, 16) dates its founding by Carthage to 160 years after the mother city; an earlier Phoenician settlement existed at Sa Caleta. Loyal until 206, when Mago called there (Livy, XXVIII, 37).
Today: Puig des Molins and Sa Caleta, UNESCO-listed with Dalt Vila.
See the Places page →
Never colonised, these islands of the Talaiotic culture sold Carthage their slingers, famous throughout Antiquity (Diodorus, V, 17-18). Mago wintered on Menorca in 206; tradition credits him with the name of Mahón.
Today: Talaiots and prehistoric villages; the "port of Mago" etymology remains a tradition.
The army →
A Tyrian foundation on an island, with a temple of Melqart famous throughout the ancient world. An ally of Carthage, it went over to Rome in 206 (Livy, XXVIII, 37).
Today: In the Cádiz museum, two Phoenician anthropoid sarcophagi, found in 1887 and 1980.
See the Places page →A port of call in the middle of the Sicilian Channel, used by the Phoenicians from the 8th century, then in the orbit of Carthage. The Romans seized it at the very start of the Second Punic War, in 218 (Livy, XXI, 51).
Tombs and pottery show a Phoenician presence from the 8th century. In 218 the Carthaginian garrison of about 2,000 men surrendered to the Romans (Livy, XXI, 51).
Today: Punic tombs across the island; cippi and stelae in the National Museum of Archaeology in Valletta.
The cippi of Melqart ↓
On a hill above Marsaxlokk, a megalithic temple reused by the Phoenicians for Astarte, then honoured as a sanctuary of Juno in Roman times — Cicero accuses Verres of looting it (Against Verres, II, 4, 103).
Today: A site excavated by Italian missions from 1963 onwards; limited access.
The "Emporia" of the Lesser Syrtis: three ports — hence the name Tripolitania — at the end of the Saharan tracks. Here Carthage held a frontier against the Greeks of Cyrene.
According to Sallust (Jugurtha, 78), founded by exiles from Sidon. The richest port of the Emporia, contested by Masinissa with Carthage. Punic remained an official language under Rome: the theatre bears a bilingual dedication by Annobal Tapapius Rufus (AD 1-2).
Today: One of the best-preserved Roman cities in the Mediterranean, birthplace of Septimius Severus (UNESCO).
First a seasonal port of call, then a Punic town. Its multi-storey "Mausoleum B", Hellenistic in style (2nd c. BC), is a masterpiece of Punic architecture.
Today: The Roman theatre with three tiers of columns and the restored Punic mausoleum (UNESCO).
The third city of the Emporia, Wyʿt on its Punic coins. It later inherited the name of the region, Tripolis, "the three cities" — hence Tripoli.
Today: Few visible remains beneath the medina, apart from the Arch of Marcus Aurelius (2nd c. AD).
A string of ports of call as far as the Atlantic. Many later became residences of the Numidian and Mauretanian kings, who kept the Punic language and cults.
A Punic trading post, called "royal" as a residence of the Numidian kings. Augustine was its bishop and died there in 430; he reports that Punic was still spoken in the countryside.
Today: The site of Hippo: forum, baths, Christian quarter and museum.
The Punic name begins with ʾy ("island"), probably after the islets of the harbour. The Greeks heard the number twenty (eikosi) in it and invented twenty companions of Hercules (Solinus): a fanciful etymology.
Today: Ancient levels uncovered in the excavations of Place des Martyrs, in the lower Casbah.
A Punic port, then the capital of Juba II and Cleopatra Selene, renamed Caesarea around 25 BC. The royal couple kept a learned court there.
Today: The Cherchell museum and its statues; ancient baths, amphitheatre and harbour.
On a hill above the Loukkos estuary. Pliny (XIX, 63) places here a sanctuary of Hercules-Melqart older than that of Gades; legend set the Garden of the Hesperides here.
Today: Acropolis, temples and large fish-salting works of the Roman period.
The founding →The southernmost known Phoenician port of call on the Atlantic: amphorae and graffiti of the 7th century. Later, Juba II produced purple dye there (Pliny, VI, 201). Some see it as Hanno's Cerne — a debated hypothesis.
Today: The island, facing the town, is a nature reserve closed to the public.
Hanno's voyage →Main source: Diodorus of Sicily, Library of History, book XIV.
Two marble cippi, found near Marsaxlokk in the late 17th century, bear the same dedication in Phoenician and Greek: two brothers, Abdosir and Osirshamar, thank "Melqart, lord of Tyre" (2nd c. BC).
In 1758, Abbé Jean-Jacques Barthélemy used the proper names in the Greek text to identify the Phoenician letters: the alphabet was deciphered. One cippus, given to Louis XVI by the Grand Master of the Order of Malta, is in the Louvre; the other is in Valletta.
The Nora Stone, found in Sardinia in 1773, is one of the oldest Phoenician inscriptions in the West (9th-8th c.); it bears the name ŠRDN, Sardinia.
"To our lord, to Melqart, lord of Tyre" — opening of the cippi dedication.
Language and writing →
Approximate borders based on historical syntheses (spheres of influence, not modern borders). Base map: Natural Earth. Ancient sites: customary locations.