A Description of Carthage

The geography of Carthage has very mountainous terrain in the north while the south has more of a dessert appeal. Carthage is centered off the shore of the Gulf of Tunis on a triangular peninsula. Most of the terrain is covered in low hills through the town and other parts. Where the city was laid out on the bank of the peninsula made it easy to protect the people living in the towns. It also had a safe anchorage for ships near the waters plus, an abundant supply of fish from the golf. The city was connected to the mainland by a narrow piece of land close to the edge of the peninsula. Also, Carthage was a favorite city to be in for emperors, even though none of them resided there, they had enjoyed visiting the city. The government of Carthage had been an aristocracy of nobles and wealthy merchants ruling the city to an oligarchical government. Having an oligarchical government meant that the power went from the rich to having on judge and two elected suffels in power. This meant that the people could have more of a say in what’s going on instead of all of the rich snotty people ruling over the poor people in the city. Having this type of system of government had a little more freedom towards the people in Carthage. Carthage’s main culture included human sacrifices to the gods like Ba’al, the symbol of the meaning master/lord, and Tanit, the goddess that looked over fatality rites. They also brought two more gods (Demeter and Persephone) and one more goddess (Juno) into their religious patterns. The main humans they sacrificed were boys from the ages two to twelve. Though, besides sacrifice, the inhabitants of Carthage were credited with inventing glass, and making a luxurious purple dye called tyrian. They also created a biremel (two tiers of ores) galley, plus, they navigated the stars to tell directions for ship guiding or even walking around late at night. Their religion however, mainly worshiped the Ba’al Quarnaim which was a god like figure