Destroy Carthage (15 page)

Apart from corn from the African granaries and metals
from Iberia, Carthage dealt in resin from Lipara and other
islands off the toe of Italy; sulphur from Acragas (collected
in the region of Etna); wax, honey and slaves from Corsica;
cattle from the Balearics; wine from many shores to suit many
tastes; dyes, perfumes, dates, animal skins, and so on. In
Europe, as in Africa, trade was established not only with
coastal populations but with inland communities.

Thus, the scope and complexity of Carthaginian experience
mounted. To oriental traditions, African environment and
Greek influence were added the impressions of citizens who
had explored the Niger, crossed the Sahara, felt the swell of Biscay, sailed the Nile, engaged in business from the English
Channel to the Dardanelles. What had they become, these in­veterate travellers, since Dido first landed in Africa ? How did
they appear to others in the years that remained of Punic
history ?

In many respects they still displayed their eastern origin, a
source of unease among their western neighbours, whose sus­picions at length gave teeth to Cato's prejudice. Wrote
Plutarch : The Carthaginians are hard and gloomy, submissive
to their rulers and hard on their subjects, cowardly in fear,
cruel in anger, stubborn in decision and austere, caring little
for amusement or life's graces.'

But Plutarch, born too late to know the people of whom he
wrote, merely echoed the aversion of a bygone age. His charge
of cowardice, palpably unjustified, casts doubt on the rest of
his summary. Austere and gloomy ? There is a note of melan­cholia in Punic fatalism, as in the nature of most passionate
peoples. Yet Plautus, writing while Carthage was still alive,
portrayed the Carthaginian Hanno as a colourful, by no means
depressing rogue.

Nor did the showy trappings of the Sacred Guard, the gold
drinking cups of its warriors, reflect austerity. It was certainly
true that the Carthaginians were not besotted by lives of idle
luxury. Rich merchants turned a hand, it seems, on the farms
they bought with their profits, and were not afraid of hazard­ous voyages. Neither theatres nor public games were known
at Carthage. But if the hard-headed merchants who ran the
city placed a lower value on the arts than their competitors,
they were not blind to fine craftsmanship.

Greek artisans lived and worked at Carthage, whose
wealthier homes were embellished with Hellenic vases, lamps,
mosaics, bronze and ivory statuettes, even bathroom suites
identical to those found in Greece.

Carthaginian craftsmen, catering for the masses, and for the
backward people of other lands who received their cruder
artefacts in exchange for valuables, admittedly were inferior
in technique and artistry to the Greeks. That the aesthetic
standards of much at Carthage grated on the Greeks and
Romans is without doubt. On the other hand, the portrayal
of gods with dulcimers and zithers, and their association with
various forms of dancing, suggests a chord with which the
critics might have harmonized.

They might also have felt at home among the ample feasts
and banquets staged by the wealthy to win political support
or entertain friends. Though Plautus poked fun at African
'porridge eaters,' and Plato asserted that alcohol was widely
forbidden in Carthage (including, he believed, before sexual
intercourse), Punic cooks were in fact renowned for the ex­cellence of their sweet and spiced dishes; wines a favourite
drink. A Carthaginian recipe has survived for a type of local
sherry the Romans knew as
passum.

Cato's brooding scrutiny of the metropolis would have been
returned by citizens of varying appearance. The city was a
melting pot, its relics revealing skeletal similarity in some
instances with remains at Tyre (perhaps true Phoenicians) but
a predominance in the main of African, not excluding Negro,
blood.

The somewhat slender frames of the skeletons, considered
with the known physical endurance of the populace, hint at a
wiry people of strong constitution, traits possessed by the
Barbary nomads. Unlike many orientals in urban societies, the
Carthaginian merchant class seems to have avoided becoming
soft - perhaps thanks to its close connections with seafaring
and agriculture, and the admixture of Libyan stock.

At the same time, the cult of physique never appealed to
the society. While the Greeks admired the naked bodies of
strong youths and lithe girls, the Carthaginians preserved an
oriental disdain for such exhibition, wearing long clothes and
seldom appearing even bare-headed. The traditional male garb
was a straight, ankle-length robe, worn loose in the fashion of
the Egyptian
galabieh.

'Hey, you without a belt!' the Carthaginian was hailed in the
Toenulus,
his Greek accoster inquiring if he was wearing his
bathrobe. Actually, though a source of amusement to the
foreigner, the costume was a useful protection against heat and
dust-storms.

Most Carthaginian men grew beards and covered their hair,
often tightly curled, with a conical hat resembling the Muslim
fez, or
tarboosh.
They also kept off the sun with a cloth,
secured round the skull, which fell to the shoulders like a
modern Arab headdress.

Female costume was closer to the Greek style. From an early
period, Carthaginian women wore embroidered robes resem­bling those favoured by Ionian matrons, simple garments
gathered at the waist and with a decorative band (the Greek
paryphe)
rising vertically from the hem. Feminine hair-styles
kept pace with Hellenic trends. The tresses, invariably grown
long, were variously straight or curled, pulled back or fringed,
and worn with headband or chignon. At one period, coils over
the ears were fashionable.

Both sexes wore perfume, seemingly liberally, and earrings.
They were also tattooed. Carthaginian fondness for ostenta­tious jewelry offended Greek taste. Those who could afford
it smothered themselves in expensive ornaments. Intricate
pendants hung from the ears; throats were adorned with
necklaces of turquoise, jacinth and gold; women of no partic­ular distinction wore diadems.

Often, jewelry incorporated such astral symbols as crescents
and pointed stars, or represented sacred animals, including
snakes. Finger-rings were commonplace, at an early period
containing seals of jasper or cornelian; later, intaglios. Both
sexes sported bracelets, in addition to which the women wore
massive anklets as familiar in Bedouin society.

If much of this was strange to European cultures, Punic man­ners were equally alien. Carthaginian courtesy, orientally de­monstrative, was mistaken by Greeks and Romans for
obsequiousness, a quality they despised. The Africans saw no
indignity in prostrating themselves and kissing the feet of
those they honoured. To the Roman, such behaviour was
cringing servility, the more perplexing since its perpetrators
were just as capable of fiery passion. Sensual by nature, the Carthaginians observed social re­straints of some sobriety. Wanton resort to carnal pleasure was
strictly curbed. Monogamy was the general rule in sex re­lationships, husbands and wives not uncommonly being buried
beside each other at life's end. No evidence exists of harims
or extensive concubinage. Indeed, the status of women, at
least among the upper class, discouraged male licence. Many
possessed considerable political influence. Others, as priestesses,
exercised direct authority over men.

Apart from the abnormal circumstance of child sacrifice, the
Carthaginians appear to have cherished their offspring no
less than did other people. There was a goddess (Vininam) to
watch over infants, and one of the most remarkable relics
found of the city was a set of doll's crockery: tiny cups,
plates, jugs, jars and clay lamps.

So far as can be told, Punic education was largely practical.
The emperor Julian said that Carthaginian children were ap­prenticed to the world at an early age, encouraged to work
diligently and live a blameless life. Found among commercial
families throughout history, this approach to the building of
initiative and character is consistent with the prospects open
to youths in Carthaginian trade.

All the same, formal tutorship certainly existed, and not
entirely theological. Hannibal Barca was said to have studied
strategy in text-books; the ladylike Sophonisba allegedly was
accomplished in the humanities; one Hasdrubal, also known
by the Greek name Cleitomachus, became head of the
Academy at Athens. In the last century of Carthage there was
a school of later Pythagoreans in the city, which also possessed
libraries, probably of Greek as well as Carthaginian works.

The only Punic books now known are the writings of the
agriculturist, Mago. Since they contained, among much else,
veterinary prescriptions, probably there was a medical litera­ture at Carthage. The presence of doctors is attested by in­scriptions. At summer's height, when the marshes of the
nearby lake stank like rotten eggs, disease was a serious prob­lem in Carthage, as in Tunis through history. Against trachoma
and many other infirmities hailed by the sirocco, the people
appealed not only to medicine but the healing gods Eshmoun
and Shadrapa.

Shadrapa's assistance was invoked also in cases of poisoning
by the snakes and scorpions of the region.

Watching
the Tunisian farmer hoeing the dry soil on the
prosaic site that today marks the home of ancient Carthage,
it seems incredible that marbled temples, pillars of porphyry,
great halls of state once towered on that spot within the
mightiest battlements of Africa. Not even Cato can have im­agined the complete and utter oblivion that was to befall the
city following his fiat - an extinction so complete that the ex­act location of the metropolis, the heart of the Punic empire,
was rediscovered with certainty only last century.