result of that want of political instinct, which amidst all their
lively sense of the ties of race, and amidst all their faithful
attachment to the city of their fathers, formed the most essential
feature in the character of the Phoenicians. Liberty had no charms
for them, and they lusted not after dominion; "quietly they lived,"
says the Book of Judges, "after the manner of the Sidonians, careless
and secure, and in possession of riches."

Carthage

Of all the Phoenician settlements none attained a more rapid and
secure prosperity than those which were established by the Tyrians and
Sidonians on the south coast of Spain and the north coast of Africa--
regions that lay beyond the reach of the arm of the great-king and the
dangerous rivalry of the mariners of Greece, and in which the natives
held the same relation to the strangers as the Indians in America held
to the Europeans. Among the numerous and flourishing Phoenician
cities along these shores, the most prominent by far was the "new
town," Karthada or, as the Occidentals called it, Karchedon or
Carthago. Although not the earliest settlement of the Phoenicians
in this region, and originally perhaps a dependency of the adjoining
Utica, the oldest of the Phoenician towns in Libya, it soon
outstripped its neighbours and even the motherland through the
incomparable advantages of its situation and the energetic activity
of its inhabitants. It was situated not far from the (former) mouth
of the Bagradas (Mejerda), which flows through the richest corn
district of northern Africa, and was placed on a fertile rising
ground, still occupied with country houses and covered with groves
of olive and orange trees, falling off in a gentle slope towards the
plain, and terminating towards the sea in a sea-girt promontory.