The Rise and Fall of Carthage by Murat Smith

Carthage commanded harbours, sea routes and fertile North African land long before Hannibal crossed the Alps. Founded by Phoenician settlers and tied to communities from Iberia to Sicily, it became a cosmopolitan republic whose wealth rested on trade, agriculture, craft, tribute and negotiated power. Much of its own literature disappeared, leaving its history to be recovered from archaeology, inscriptions and accounts written by rivals. The Rise and Fall of Carthage: Trade, Empire, Hannibal and the Struggle for the Mediterranean rebuilds that lost world. It examines government by suffetes and councils, Punic religion and the disputed tophet, Mago's agricultural knowledge, warships and armies, the First Punic War, the mercenary revolt, the Barcid expansion in Iberia, Hannibal's invasion of Italy, Scipio's counter-offensive and the final siege of 149–146 BCE. Richly illustrated with verified public-domain and CC0 historical material, the book also follows Punic survival under Roman rule and the reinvention of Carthage in literature, politics and archaeology. It is a balanced, accessible account of a North African civilisation too often reduced to Rome's enemy.