Carthage

But now nothing remains of the great city save a few cisterns and some shapeless masses of masonry; all that is valuable has been carried off either for the construction of the modern city Tunis or to enrich the public buildings and museums of Europe; and now, indeed, there can be no doubt that in very truth: ‘Deleta est Carthago.’ Carthage is destroyed.

Quote 1895 Murray’s Handbook for travellers in Algeria and Tunisa

And the sad thing is, so little has changed, and I'd been so looking forward to seeing something more. The years I'd spent teaching eleven year olds about the Punic Wars, Hannibal, the life and death struggle between Rome's military machine and Carthaginian sea power. 

We walked through its ruins in intense heat but were fortunate in having a laid back guide who didn’t walk too fast and was able to tell us what every obscure stone signified. Heat and imagination can have a hallucinatory effect and gradually the city took shape in my mind. 

First of all though, its history in a nutshell.

According to legend and Virgil, Carthage was founded in 814 BC by a Phoenician exile from Tyre. Queen Dido was escaping her tyrannical brother Pygmalion who may have been responsible for her husband’s death. Dido and her crew landed in Cyprus, where they seized eighty prostitutes as wives for their future colony. In North Africa, near modern Tunis, Dido tricked the resident ruler to grant them land. His initial response had been to grant them as much land as an ox hide could encompass. Dido cut the hide into ultra-thin strips, joined them into one very long strip, and wound it around one of the surrounding hills.  There they built their city which expanded over time. 

By the third century BC it had become the major maritime power in the Mediterranean with its colonies sprouting like mushrooms. The emerging Rome was not at all happy about this and after three fiercely fought wars, Carthage was destroyed in 146 BC.

Two illustrations of Carthage as it would have been. Note the hill housing the original settlement and the harbour below 

Carthage’s ancient harbour was known as ‘cothon,' a term now widely applied to similarly constructed harbours ie a man made basin connected to the sea by a channel. 

The cothon at Carthage had an outer rectangular merchant harbour, behind which lay an inner circular harbour reserved for military use. This harbour had an island in the middle which housed a tower from where the admiral could observe both the harbour and the sea beyond.

The inner harbour was surrounded by docking bays for ship maintenance. Above them were warehouses for oars, rigging, and essential ship supplies. 

At its peak, the harbour housed 220 ships, and the  narrow channel leading to it could be sealed by iron chains. 

This is all that remains. Imagination is called for. The maps above also help.

A hundred or so years later, Rome having appreciated the strategic value of the site, built Roman Carthage on the ruins of the original settlement. From there on it flourished as a major city in the Mediterranean—until its destruction by the Arabs in 698 AD. Its destruction was wilful and systematic. Columns from its churches and temples were used to build the Great Mosque of Tunis, and its remaining buildings quarried for stone to build luxury villas or apartment blocks. 

                                    This is what Dido would have seen from her original hill fort

The pictures below show what's left of where later Carthaginian elites lived—ie on and around the top of the hill. For all their wealth their water management was fairly basic, each house storing their own water, often on their roofs. 

The Tophet, ie burial grounds, and temple fragments.

The Tophet and Temple area are adjoined, and beneath each of these stelae are the burnt remains of a sacrifice. On many of the stelae are carvings of a crescent moon and a sun, often with a depiction of the Goddess Tanit, the moon Goddess, who partnered with the sky god Baal. If you look to the right of the photo immediately above, you will see the 'protective' half moon over the sun, below which is the goddess Tanit.

Children were sacrificed to Baal. These are their coffins.

The Roman aqueduct below

Everything changed when the Romans came. Rather like McDonald’s, Roman cities followed a pattern; aqueducts and fresh running water were one of life’s necessities, along with the baths. A single cistern carrying water from the aqueduct wouldn’t have worked. As seen in the picture below, a small fleet of cisterns, like pigs teats carried the water from the aqueduct to the thirsty city.

Following the steps of long dead Romans:  the road to the Antonine Baths and sea. 

                                    

The Antonine Baths were started by Hadrian and named after his successor Antonius Pius. They were the third largest baths in the entire Roman empire, something I wondered about as I wandered through them. They have two further distinctions. Because they were built upon clay, a feature of this coastline, the foundations were necessarily deep, which meant that there wasn't room for basements to house the hypocausts  As a result, they were built above ground, which meant the baths themselves were built above them, and so uniquely high.

The columns below serve a useful purpose. Everything below them were the hypocausts fed by broiling slaves for the heated water in the baths above

The cold, cold lager was very nice as we sailed from Tunis beneath a red sky

Goblin Gold

Three days sailing to Tunisia and the ruins of Carthage. What do you do aboard ship? I suppose it depends on the kind of ship you are on: the small floating cities or the smaller old fashioned kind.

Aiming directly for the elephant in the room (or in this case, the open sea) Fred Olsen attracts and/or caters for the middle-aged to the old. And I know the irony. I’m no spring chicken. But it’s still quite funny. There were occasions when I was reminded of Blind Pew in Treasure Island; you know the one—the villainous blind beggar who delivers the dread ‘black spot’ to those about to die. In Treasure Island, you hear him through the open windows of the country inn: the tap, tap, tap of his stick. There were a few occasions when, walking on deck, it seemed I was being pursued (if that’s the right word) by ten or more Blind Pews, and I’d hurry my pace. 

So, apart from avoiding Blind Pew what else can you do aboard ship? Our routine was constant and therapeutic: breakfast followed by a brisk one-mile walk and then reading. Three course lunch, followed by the brisk one-mile walk, followed by reading, followed by Afternoon Tea. The trick there was to limit yourself to three small cakes or sandwiches. (Occasionally both.)

You definitely need the one mile walk after that but you do it with renewed vigour, knowing it is the last of the day. After that, it is more reading,  the first drink of the day – cocktail or beer – and then dinner, a moonlit stroll and then bed.

There’s evening entertainment of course, and a whole variety of activities throughout the day for those that way inclined, but my favourite activity was talking (when not eating or reading.) And the best part of that was ‘listening.’ 

The middle-aged to elderly have lived, have stories to tell, the leisure to share and in most cases  have led interesting lives. Over a week you come across a kaleidoscope of characters, over three weeks even more, and often you never meet them again. Kind of like speed dating. And you meet a few turkeys. I remember making a beeline for fellow scousers, their accent unmistakeable. Conversation was started by asking which part of Liverpool they were from— most parts of Liverpool have their  own subtle, but distinct accent. One man I asked was a tall chap with a long face and hooked nose from which he looked down in quiet assurance or perhaps arrogance.  In answer to the question, he murmured "Anfield " as though conferring a blessing, and turned like the proudest of prelates assured of salvation. 

I’ve been thinking of all these people I met and talked to over these  last few weeks, seeing the trees turn colour, the reds and glorious golds before they fall. Goblin gold, I used to think as a child and still do, the leaves that is, people are gold.

And if this doesn’t appeal, it means you have time to read more books and stare at sea and sky