Somewhere in Carthage (ROM0260)

Somewhere in Carthage: A City Before Its Destruction

Carthage. Before 146 BC, before the Third Punic War, before Scipio Aemilianus razed it to the ground and salted the earth — there was a city. One of the greatest cities in the ancient Mediterranean world, home to perhaps 700,000 people, with harbors that could shelter hundreds of warships and merchant vessels simultaneously, with libraries and temples and a civic architecture that rivaled Rome’s own.

The City Rome Feared

Carthage in its prime was not the defeated, diminished city of the years after Zama. It was the commercial capital of the western Mediterranean — a Phoenician foundation that had grown into an empire stretching from North Africa to Spain, Sicily, and Sardinia. The Carthaginian merchant marine dominated the western trade routes. Carthaginian purple dye, Carthaginian glass, Carthaginian agricultural techniques (later copied by Roman writers and attributed to a Carthaginian author named Mago) shaped the ancient world.

The military power that Hannibal commanded was built on this commercial wealth — the ability to hire the best mercenaries from Spain, Gaul, and Africa, to maintain a navy, to field war elephants captured and trained in the Atlas Mountains. When Rome finally destroyed Carthage in 146 BC, it was not because Carthage was militarily threatening — the reduced city after Zama had no fleet and could not make war without Roman permission. It was because Cato the Elder‘s repeated insistence that “Carthage must be destroyed” (Carthago delenda est) had finally prevailed: Rome destroyed Carthage not out of fear but out of a kind of retrospective terror at what Carthage had once been.

The Original Artwork by Giuseppe Rava

This original Roman military art print by Giuseppe Rava — historical illustrator for Osprey Publishing since 2007 — captures life in ancient Carthage before its destruction with the meticulous accuracy that defines every work by the Maestro. Authentic Carthaginian architecture, costume, and daily life rendered in oil on canvas.

The print is produced as a limited edition, individually numbered and hand-signed by Giuseppe Rava, SRA3 format (45×32 cm / 17.7×12.6 in), on premium fine art paper. Available worldwide with international shipping.