Carthage & the African Chora in 218 B.C.

Carthage & the African Chora — Carthage.

The sovereign heart of the empire: the great city on the Gulf of Tunis with its double war-harbour, the fertile Cape Bon and Bagradas valley, and the African chora worked by a subject Libyan peasantry. This was the one territory Carthage ruled outright — taxing its towns, garrisoning its land and conscripting its men. From the hinterland she drew grain and the dreaded levy of tribute, raised to half the harvest during the Mercenary War; the savagery of that struggle (241–238) still smouldered in Africa in 218, a reminder of how heavily the metropolis pressed upon her own countryside.