To any Greek contemporary, the Sabratha mausoleum would have managed to look both familiar and alien at the same time. Many of the mausoleum’s artistic and architectural elements–including the capitals, columns, kouroi and metopes–hailed from the Greek artistic and architectural canon. Furthermore, the metopes were covered in brightly painted stucco in the same fashion as their Greek equivalents. These colours were used to particularly striking effect on the central panel. The naked flesh of Bes was deep pink. The brilliant white of his loincloth and teeth highlighted the red of his lugubrious lips and the cobalt blue of his beard. Colour also added greatly to the expressiveness of the lions, with their blue manes resting on deepyellow bodies. The turquoise of their lifeless eyes and the red of their lolling tongues set against the brilliant white of their teeth contrasted with the flaccidity of death.
The heavy use of Egyptian architectural styling and themes also points to the influence of the great new Greek city of Alexandria to the east, where an exciting fusion of native and Greek styles had taken place. And yet other clues suggest that the monument’s designer was certainly no Greek architect (the Punic world had in any case been integrating Greek and Egyptian styles into its art and architecture since at least the sixth century BC). The anatomic details on the stocky body of Bes, for example, are articulated on the metope by the use of surface decoration, a typically Punic technique. Another hallmark of Punic art, an obsessive attention to detail and symmetry, is also much in evidence on the Sabratha mausoleum. Thus the two triangles that make up the pointed beard of Bes correspond exactly to their counterparts that mark the lower border of the god’s white loincloth on the thighs. Even locks of hair are individually drawn out.
More importantly, one finds that the usual conventions of time and place have been discarded: archaic kouroi jostle with classical and Hellenistic elements.57 Traditional Greek fable is also given a fresh twist, with Heracles dispatching the Nemean lion with a short sword rather than by strangulation. There is a freedom here that one simply does not find even in the more liberal artistic milieu created by Alexander the Great’s conquest of the Persian Empire and the subsequent close contact of the Greeks with the venerable cultures of the East during the third and second centuries BC. Even more heretical to the Greek architectural eye would have been the stunted proportions of the columns on the first floor, which are reduced to being little more than a base for the storey above. One would never find this lack of proportion in a Greek building of that period, however provincial its setting.
However, this willingness to use styles that had long gone out of fashion in the Hellenic world, often in unfamiliar combinations, should be seen not as evidence of boorish gaucheness or a lack of artistic vision, but rather as further evidence of the creative independence that typified the Punic commonwealth. Yet the most surprising aspect of the Sabratha mausoleum was its success as a building. By rights this strange multi-tiered structure crammed with a hotchpotch of cultural references and artistic styles should have been an architectural disaster. However, the bold interplay between shadow and light created by the concave lines and the height of the structure combined with the elegant vertical flow of the colonnades and the kouroi mean that this monument stands as a graceful but unmistakably Punic view of the world.
Too often an overemphasis on the eclecticism of the influences found in Punic art, rather than consideration of the originality of their assemblage, has led to the false assumption that the Carthaginians’ engagement with more ‘inventive’ and ‘original’ cultures–in particular Greece–amounted to little more than passive consumption or shallow ventriloquism. The considerable evidence that exists for Punic populations speaking Greek, writing works on Greek literature, studying Greek philosophy, wearing Greek clothes, and venerating Greek deities has commonly been taken as confirmation of that view.58 By the same token, the clear debt that ancient Greek culture owed to the great civilizations of the Near East has often been met with derision and denial.59
In fact the Sabratha mausoleum stands as a stunning monument not to the derivative nature of late Punic culture, but to the extent to which the Punic world was part of a wider economically and culturally joined-up community that spanned much of south-western Europe and North Africa long before it was politically united under the imperial aegis of Rome. It was not a world founded on the overwhelming political or military supremacy of one particular power, but a much looser network made up of the diverse peoples–Punic, Greek, Etruscan and others–who lived along its shores. These different ethnic groups were initially linked together by maritime trade–the engine through which goods, people, techniques and ideas flowed across the ancient Mediterranean. Instead of stemming from the domination of one imperial power, the creative and economic dynamism that characterized the West during this period was often forged out of the bitter commercial and political rivalries that existed between near equals: the Punic and Greek populations who had both originally come westward in search of land and trade.
As the dominant commercial maritime power in the region throughout much of the first millennium BC, Carthage was one of the centrepieces of a pre-Roman western Mediterranean defined as much by its cultural, economic and political synergies as by the divisions and enmities which feature so prominently in the surviving textual accounts. A major aim of this book is to recover some of this long-forgotten world. For it is only when Carthage is once more placed within its proper trans-Mediterranean context that the historical significance of this once great North African metropolis can be retrieved from the dead weight of wanton destruction and gross misrepresentation that has for so long subsumed it.
A constant presence throughout this book is the great hero Heracles (or Hercules). It may seen strange, even perverse, that a Greek deity who would also become a major figure in the Roman celestial pantheon should play such a prominent role in a book about Carthage. However, Heracles, better than any other figure, stands as an emblem of the cultural diversity and interconnectivity that typified the ancient Mediterranean. Although, as the great wanderer and strongman of Hellenic myth, Heracles was closely associated with Greek colonial endeavour, he also epitomized the syncretism–the amalgamation of different religions, cultures and schools of thought–that was one of the main results of the contacts that Greek colonists made with other ethnic groups, particularly the Punic diaspora. From the sixth century BC onward, Heracles came to be increasingly associated with the Punic god Melqart in the minds of not only the Punic but also the Greek populations of the central and western Mediterranean. It was no coincidence that, when the great Carthaginian general Hannibal cast around for a celestial figurehead to unite the people of the West against the ever-increasing power of Rome, he should choose the figure of Heracles–Melqart. Indeed, during the Second Punic War, Heracles came to symbolize the spoils of victory for which Carthage and Rome fought so hard and so long: the right not only to dictate the economic and political future of the region, but also to claim ownership of its distinguished past.
Attempts to conjure up contemporary relevance with regard to the ancient world can often appear trite and laboured at best, and fatuous and false at worst. However, the history of Carthage does force us to reassess some of the comfortable historical certainties that underpin many of the modern West’s assumptions about its own cultural and intellectual heritage. The ‘classical world’ still revered as the fount of much of Western civilization was never an exclusively Graeco-Roman achievement, but was the result of a much more complex set of interactions between many different cultures and peoples.
Thus Carthage stands not only as an eloquent testament to the cultural diversity that once exemplified the ancient Mediterranean, but also as a stark reminder of just how ruthlessly that past has been selected for us.
1
Feeding the Beast: The Phoenicians and the Discovery of the West
THE LAND OF THE COLOUR PURPLE
Sometime in the second quarter of the ninth century BC, the Great King of Assy
ria Ashurnasirpal II marched his army to the Phoenician coast, where he ostentatiously washed his weapons in the waters of the Mediterranean and made offerings to the gods. This ominous gesture elicited exactly the response it was supposed to: ‘I received the tribute of the kings of the seacoast–namely, the lands of the peoples of Tyre, Sidon, Byblos, Mahallatu, Maizu, Kaizu, Amurru and the city of Arvad, which is in the middle of the sea–silver, gold, tin, bronze, a bronze vessel, multicoloured linen garments, a large female monkey, a small female monkey, ebony, boxwood, and ivory of sea creatures. They submitted to me.’1
This was not the first visit that an Assyrian king had made to Phoenicia, but it marked a new chapter in Assyria’s interest in the region.2 Assyria was in the ascendant, and the Phoenician cities would now be expected regularly to provide considerable quantities of tribute in exchange for their continued political autonomy.3 We are fortunate that the Assyrians understood the power of the image and the authority of the word. In their ruined cities, archaeologists have uncovered considerable numbers of inscriptions and bas-reliefs setting out their blueprint for empire. They present a striking portrait of a formidable military machine manned by legions of warriors sporting trademark carefully curled beards and hair. With their graphic depictions of endless battles, sacked cities, mass deportations and slaughter on a grand scale, the bas-reliefs of Assyria bring home the ruthlessness required to carve out and maintain an empire which at its height took in large parts of Iraq, Iran, Arabia, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and Cyprus.4
Being intimidated by much larger and more powerful neighbours was not a new experience for the Phoenicians.5 Hemmed in by steep mountain ranges to the east and the vast expanse of the Mediterranean to the west, the cities of Phoenicia were spread out along a narrow strip of coastline much of which is now the modern state of Lebanon. Although the inhabitants of these cities certainly did not call themselves Phoínikes, the name that was given to them by their great commercial rivals, the Greeks, they did recognize a shared ethnic identity as Can’nai, inhabitants of the land of Canaan, an extensive territory that took in all of the coastal plains of the Levant and northern Syria.6 Yet, despite a common linguistic, cultural and religious inheritance, the region was very rarely politically united, with each city operating as a sovereign state ruled over by a king or local dynast.7 Indeed, Phoenicia did not exist as a united political entity until over a thousand years later, when the Romans created the province of that name. However, despite these weaknesses and the threat posed by the major powers of the Near East, the Levantine coastal cities had–very much against the odds–long managed to safeguard their political independence.
The key to continued Phoenician autonomy and indeed prosperity, often in the face of considerable external pressure, was unrivalled mastery of sea. The exchange of luxury goods had long been at the heart of inter-state diplomacy in the Bronze Age Near East, c.3300–1200 BC, and had ensured that the palace authorities had kept a tight control over long-distance trade. Merchants stationed in foreign ports were essentially royal agents acting in the interests of the monarch. As his representatives and not merely private individuals, these merchants were expected to be offered commercial and legal protection by their hosts, and were treated rather like embassy staff.8 Indeed, in order to engage seriously in high-level diplomatic activity, the great powers of the Near East needed a ready source of luxury goods to exchange with one another. Although some of these materials were readily accessible –such as the cedarwood for which the mountains of the Levant were famed–others had to be fetched from lands across the sea. The problem for Assyria and its rivals was that, however great their reach on terra firma, none could claim to control the vast expanse of water which many knew simply as the ‘Great Sea’.9 For the landlocked Assyrians, the Mediterranean was a force that even their almighty god Assur could not subdue, and was therefore to be held in awe and reverent fear. Even the Egyptians, whose very existence relied upon the ebb and flow of the waters of the Nile, were hopelessly ill-equipped when it came to transmarine travel. Their flat-bottomed river craft could not cope with the turbulence that even the gentlest sea produced. If they wanted access to the precious goods and materials that lay across the sea, especially in the Aegean world, then they would have to rely on middlemen, a crucial role that the Phoenician city states, whose ‘borders are in the midst of the seas’, would make their own.10
As early as the third millennium BC, sailors from the Phoenician city of Byblos had developed ships whose curved hulls were able to meet the challenges of the sea, and were using those craft to deliver cargoes of cedarwood to Egypt. Over the following centuries, Byblos and other Phoenician states such as Sidon, Tyre, Arvad and Beirut created an important niche for themselves by transporting luxury goods and bulk raw materials from overseas markets back to the Near East.11 These new trade routes took in much of the eastern Mediterranean, including Cyprus, Rhodes, the Cyclades, mainland Greece, Crete, the Libyan coast and Egypt. Invaluable information on what was being transported has come from a number of shipwrecks. There were ingots of copper and tin, as well as storage vessels which are thought to have contained unguents, wine and oil, glass, gold and silver jewellery, precious objects of faience (glazed earthenware), painted pottery tools, and even scrap metal.12
This crucial niche role as the logistics experts of the Near Eastern luxury-goods market offered the coastal cities of the Levant and northern Syria protection from the vagaries of Near Eastern politics, because all the great powers needed and valued their services. Indeed change, even in its most turbulent form, presented further opportunities rather than catastrophe. When, at the end of the twelfth century BC, the eastern Mediterranean suffered a series of calamities at the hands of disparate bands of pastoralists, nomads, landless peasants and disbanded mercenaries (those with no stake in the narrow world of the Bronze Age palace), many of the old power structures that had dominated the region for millennia simply collapsed. Some states, such as the northern Syrian state of Ugarit, and the Hittite Empire in Asia Minor, simply disappeared, whereas others, such as Assyria and Egypt, were seriously weakened.
The top-heavy structure of the priestly scribal and military elites had ultimately provided monarchs with too shallow a power base to overcome any serious challenge. Social problems were exacerbated by a rigidly centralized and controlled economy which simply did not allow enough wealth to trickle down to the poorer classes. Once raiders had made agriculture difficult, and maritime trade in copper and tin impossible, the end for many Bronze Age palace societies was nigh. One might have thought that the dramatic decline of the very structures which they had serviced would have spelled disaster for the Phoenician city states. Instead, it ushered in a golden age of nearly three centuries, during which they were able to operate without serious external interference.
The disappearance of state-controlled commerce liberated traders from the restrictions that had previously inhibited their operations. Long-distance trade was transformed from being a palace monopoly into a commercial venture entered into by businessmen in order to make profits for themselves.13 In the coastal cities of Phoenicia, groups of traders organized themselves into ‘firms’, which appear to have revolved around extended families, in order to exploit commercial opportunities. Although commerce was no longer under their strict control, the Phoenician kings were still heavily involved in trading operations. Indeed, the palace often appears to have operated as a bank or moneylender for mercantile ventures. The relationship between business and the state was further reinforced by the presence of the patriarchs of the mercantile firms–referred to in the Bible as the merchant princes or the ‘princes of the sea’–on a powerful council of elders who advised the king.14
With no threatening neighbour to appease, and many of their commercial rivals in northern Syria destroyed, the Phoenician cities were able to extend their trading networks greatly.15 The new Phoenician mercantile elite would also increasingly expand its commercial activities to take in the manufactu
re of luxury goods. Precious materials were unloaded at the docks and transported to workshops to be processed. Ivory from northern Syria, Africa and India was carved into delicate furniture inlays. The most luxurious pieces were further embellished by the skilful insertion of precious stones and coloured glass (Phoenicia was also a centre for the manufacture of glass and faience). Egyptian-and Assyrian-themed designs show the extent to which these luxury products were manufactured for the foreign rather than the home market. Metalwork was another speciality, with Phoenician craftsmen displaying an extraordinary level of skill in producing bronze and silver bowls, often in a bewildering array of different styles. Traditionally, art historians have tended to treat this work as little more than talented mimicry, but what makes it uniquely Phoenician is its extraordinary eclecticism.16 Gold and silver jewellery, often embellished with semiprecious stones and exhibiting an astonishing degree of detail, was produced in considerable quantities. Favourite motifs included Egyptian magic symbols such as the eye of Horus, the scarab beetle and the solar crescent, and these were thought to protect their wearers from the evil spirits that prowled the world of the living, such as the ‘flyers’ or ‘stranglers’ of the night and the serpent demon Mzh.17
Carthage Must Be Destroyed Page 4
