A maritime reach, not an empire
The title uses the word “empire”, but the Phoenician expansion was not an imperial conquest. The cities of the Levant, led by Tyre, did not send armies to rule the lands they reached. They established ports, trading posts and small settlements, usually by agreement with local peoples, and these lasted because they were useful to both sides. Phoenician colonization is better described as a chain of trading bases than as an overseas state. Several of the settlements eventually became powerful in their own right, most famously Carthage, but that happened later.
Why they went
Sources and archaeology suggest several reasons, which probably worked together.
- Metals. Silver, copper, tin, lead and iron were in demand across the Near East. Spain and Sardinia had rich ore deposits, and Cyprus had copper. The Phoenician cities went where the metal was.
- Pressure from Assyria. From the 9th century BCE, Assyrian kings demanded tribute from the coastal cities. Silver and other goods were needed to pay it, which encouraged the search for new sources.
- Limited land. The coastal strip was narrow, and the cities had little farmland. Trade and overseas bases were one way to feed and enrich growing towns, although the idea that large numbers of people left because of overpopulation is a modern guess and not documented.
- Markets. The colonies could sell Phoenician goods and supply local products in return.
The oldest Phoenician contacts with the west are often thought to have been undertaken by visiting traders long before there was a permanent settlement, and the move to settled colonies came gradually.
Cyprus and the central Mediterranean
Cyprus was the nearest large island, with copper and ties to the Levant that went back to the Bronze Age. The Phoenician city of Kition, on the south coast, is usually dated from around the 9th century BCE, and it became a major centre, with Tyrian involvement. Kition’s links to Tyre appear in later inscriptions.
Further west, Phoenician sites are known on Malta, in Sicily and in Sardinia. Motya, a small island in a lagoon on Sicily’s west coast, became an important port. In Sardinia, places such as Nora, Sulky (Sulcis) and Tharros are associated with Phoenician occupation from the 8th century BCE. The Phoenicians were not alone in the central Mediterranean: Greek colonists settled in eastern Sicily and southern Italy from the 8th century BCE, and the two groups competed and traded in the same waters.
North Africa: Utica and Carthage
On the North African coast, ancient writers named Utica as one of the oldest Phoenician foundations and gave it a date of about 1100 BCE, the same as Gadir. Archaeology has not so far supported such early dates, and the earliest firm remains found there are later. Carthage is the most famous. According to tradition, it was founded by emigrants from Tyre led by a princess, Elissa (Dido), in the late 9th century BCE; the usual ancient date corresponds to 814 or 813 BCE. The Carthage founding legend includes a conflict with her brother, King Pygmalion, and the cunning purchase of land measured with an ox hide. This is a story set down by later authors, and it is not regarded as reliable history. Excavated material from Carthage begins in the 8th century BCE.
Spain and the Atlantic
Gadir (Cádiz) lay beyond the Strait of Gibraltar and was tied to the silver and other metals of southern Spain. Other settlements along the southern Spanish coast, such as Sexi (Almuñécar) and Malaka (Málaga), formed a regional network that is attested in archaeology from the 8th century BCE onward. On the Atlantic side of Morocco, trading stations such as Lixus and Mogador followed.
Methods of settlement
How a typical Phoenician colony worked is not recorded in detail. Archaeology suggests several patterns:
- Small settlements were placed on islands, promontories or river mouths, with a sheltered anchorage and a defensible position.
- Sites were often a short sail apart, allowing ships to move in stages, though this is a general pattern and not a rule.
- Settlers lived alongside local people and traded with them. In places such as southern Spain, local communities adopted Phoenician goods, ideas and sometimes the alphabet.
- Colonies kept a link with the mother city. Tradition says that Carthage sent a share of its revenues or offerings to the temple of Melqart in Tyre, which is a sign of religious ties.
Unlike many Greek colonies, which were founded as independent cities, the Phoenician settlements were at first trading stations and became fully independent towns only gradually.
From colonies to rivals
In the 6th century BCE the balance shifted. The mother cities in the Levant came under Babylonian and then Persian rule, while Carthage grew powerful and took the lead in the west, bringing many Phoenician settlements into its sphere. It later hired large numbers of Carthaginian mercenaries and fought wars in Sicily. The conflict with Rome in the Punic Wars ended with Carthage’s destruction in 146 BCE.
Colonization also left a cultural mark. Phoenician language, alphabet and religion spread, mixed with local traditions and persisted for centuries in the west. Recent genetic work suggests that this spread did not always involve large numbers of migrants from the Levant, and that the cultural effect may have been larger than the demographic one.