[kahr-thij] 
| 1. | an ancient city-state in N Africa, near modern Tunis: founded by the Phoenicians in the middle of the 9th century b.c.; destroyed in 146 b.c. in the last of the Punic Wars. |
| 2. | a town in central Missouri. 11,104. |
[kahr-thuh-jin-ee-uh
n] , adjective, noun | Car·thage (kär'thĭj) An ancient city and state of northern Africa on the Bay of Tunis northeast of modern Tunis. It was founded by the Phoenicians in the ninth century B.C. and became the center of Carthaginian power in the Mediterranean after the sixth century B.C. The city was destroyed by the Romans at the end of the Third Punic War (146 B.C.) but was rebuilt by Julius Caesar and later (A.D. 439-533) served as capital of the Vandals before its virtual annihilation by the Arabs (698). Car'tha·gin'i·an (kär'thə-jĭn'ē-ən) adj. & n. |
An ancient city in north Africa, established by traders from Phoenicia. Carthage was a commercial and political rival of Rome for much of the third and second centuries b.c. The Carthaginian general Hannibal attempted to capture Rome by moving an army from Spain through the Alps, but he was prevented and finally defeated in his own country. At the end of the Punic Wars, the Romans destroyed Carthage, as the senator Cato had long urged. The character Dido, lover of Aeneas in the Aeneid, was a queen of Carthage.