History of Money, Banking, and Trade
A historical look at the development and evolution of money, banking, and trade. From the ancient civilizations to the present.
History of Money, Banking, and Trade
Episode 34. The Carthaginian Legacy: Trading Empire of the Ancient Mediterranean
Before Rome dominated the Mediterranean, Carthage reigned as its wealthiest maritime power. Born as a distant colony of Phoenician traders seeking escape from Assyrian control, this "New City" on North Africa's coast would evolve into something far greater than its founders imagined.
The fascinating origin story begins with Queen Dido, who fled Tyre after her brother murdered her husband. Landing in Tunisia around the 9th century BCE, she negotiated with local Libyans for "as much land as an oxhide could cover" – then cleverly cut the hide into thin strips to claim an entire hill. From this resourceful beginning grew a civilization that would transform Mediterranean commerce.
Unlike their Phoenician ancestors who operated as merchant vassals under regional powers, Carthaginians developed political independence alongside commercial dominance. Their innovative republic balanced aristocratic councils with elected officials called suffets and a people's assembly. This sophisticated constitutional system impressed even Aristotle, who praised its checks and balances – and likely influenced Rome's own republican government.
What made Carthage exceptional wasn't just what they traded (purple dye, silver, agricultural expertise) but how they traded. They pioneered silent trading techniques with indigenous Africans, established trans-Saharan caravan routes, and developed complex credit systems that challenge our assumptions about ancient economies. Rather than simple barter, Carthaginians created sophisticated financial arrangements that enabled trade across vast distances.
The transition from purely commercial power to naval military force occurred gradually as Greek expansion threatened Carthaginian interests in Sicily. This shift from their Phoenician forebears' commercial focus would eventually lead to confrontations with emerging Mediterranean powers – setting the stage for the epic Punic Wars that would determine the future of Western civilization.
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Welcome podcast listener. I am Mike D, and this is the History of Money, banking and Trade podcast. My goal is to expand your knowledge of the history and evolution of trade, along with money, banking and credit, from ancient civilizations to present-day market innovations. Since we just finished with the Phoenicians, it made sense to transition to Carthage. After all, these are their distant cousins, who were originally from Tyre. The interesting thing is how this Phoenician colony differed so much from their cousins in the Levant. Trade was their main function, but unlike the Phoenician cousins, they were also a military power their main function, but unlike the Phoenician cousins, they were also a military power.
Speaker 1:Now, to be honest with you, up until maybe a few years ago, I really didn't know a whole lot about Carthage. The only thing I did know was that they had a major war three of them in fact with Rome, but other than that, I really didn't know much about it. I did hear a little bit of stuff about child sacrifice and things like that, but other than that, I did not really have much information as far as the people and their culture. In addition, maybe I still don't have much information because much of the information that we get doesn't come from firsthand sources. It comes from the Romans and the Greeks, people that may or may not have their best interests in mind when telling the story. Now, in a way, carthage is much older than the Romans. I mean, when Rome was just a small regional power in central Italy, carthage was colonizing North Africa, from Algeria to Morocco and even southern Spain to Sicily. So ultimately, if you turn the clock back to say 500 BCE, you would see vastly different places where Rome was just kind of almost a nobody and Carthage was maybe the biggest player in the Mediterranean.
Speaker 1:Now, every culture has to have a start from somewhere and as far as Carthage goes, they came from the Phoenicians, who came from the Mediterranean coast, on its eastern shores, in a region known as the Levant. But before they were the Phoenicians they would have come from the Canaanites, who lived in modern-day Syria, lebanon, jordan, israel and Palestine. They generally lived in small city-states, just like the ancient Greeks. It was around 1500 BCE that the Phoenicians had diverged from other Canaanites in that trade, not agriculture, became their main focal point of their society. In fact, the Phoenicians were probably the first ever sea power merchant state, well before the Greeks. As a result, they were able to connect all major powers through sea and overland trade. When I say major powers, I'm referring to the various kingdoms in Mesopotamia, in Egypt, anatolia and even Southern Europe. And when I say Mesopotamia I just want to be clarified that's Assyria, babylonia and Sumer, and even Elam to the east.
Speaker 1:The Phoenicians were a small region. They didn't have large populations and therefore they never created an empire and just relied on trade, and then they would have paid their tribute and taxes to the local hegemon. At the time, the Phoenicians weren't really trying to conquer new lands and create empires as much as they were trying to expand their trade network and get access to tradable goods. In addition, just like the other Canaanites and Greeks, they never united into a single state. Therefore, each state would have had basically its own country right, just kind of like how the Greeks were set up. But the biggest difference between the Phoenicians and the Greeks was the Phoenicians got along quite well, whereas the Greeks were constantly at each other's throats. The only time the Greeks ever really united is if there was an outside force coming in. But even then sometimes certain Greeks would take the side of the outside forces, so they didn't even really necessarily unite.
Speaker 1:When they were being attacked it was shortly after the late Bronze Age collapse that the Phoenician trade colonization picked up its pace. These were trade colonies which allowed them to get access to local commodities and even finished goods in some circumstances. From Tunisia to Spain the Phoenicians expanded its colonies, but also being in places like Spain meant that they could keep some distance from the Assyrians and the Babylonians as well. So therefore they could kind of get some space between them, because there was just no way the Assyrians and the Babylonians were ever going to be able to sail out and conquer any kind of distant Phoenician colony, because the Phoenicians were the sea people and the Assyrians and the Babylonians were land armies and the Assyrians and the Babylonians were land armies. As the populations grew from trade settlements into urban centers, the Phoenicians were probably aided by the fact that these colonies were places that didn't have much of a population. They're very sparsely populated and the local indigenous population wasn't really nearly as advanced as the Phoenicians that were encroaching into the territories. So in other words, the Phoenicians would have had access to certain weapons and tools and defensive measures that possibly the local indigenous population just couldn't deal with. Once the Assyrians expanded into the Levant, this gave them even more reason to expand into their trade colonies outside of the Levant in order to escape the grip of the Assyrians. However, the Assyrians generally treated the Phoenicians better than other kingdoms, because they would pay their tribute and they generally didn't revolt the way other societies did. Nonetheless, they still knew that life was probably going to be better the farther they got away from Assyria.
Speaker 1:Carthage on the African coast meant that they could safely keep their distance from the Assyrians, or even the Egyptians or whoever was the local hegemon in the Near East. Now, it should be noted that Carthage wasn't the first settlement in North Africa. In fact, it was Utica. That Carthage wasn't the first settlement in North Africa. In fact, it was Utica that had already established itself, but not far from there. Also, carthage was not the name the Phoenicians had given it. It appears that it was known as the New City, or Kartadas in the Phoenician language. The name was later transcribed as Karkadon by the Greeks. Then it was the Romans that appropriated the Hellenized version and called it the city of Kartego.
Speaker 1:The legendary story of the founding of the city is as famous and colorful as any of the city is as famous and colorful as any. I'd compare it to the founding of Rome. However, it starts with Dido, the sister of the Tyre king, pygmalion, who had cheated her from the shared rule by killing her husband. Dido, being heartbroken, left the city, first sailing to the west, and then on her way to North Africa. Dido and her followers stopped at the Phoenician colonies on Cyprus. There she saved 80 virgins from ritual prostitution, and from there she was also joined by a priest of Baal, which Baal is the Phoenician god equivalent to Zeus, if you want to make a comparison.
Speaker 1:From there, dido made her way towards Africa and landed in modern-day Tunisia. She was met by the indigenous population, as well as the Phoenician colonists from Utica. Now, the local indigenous population may have been the Libyans and, let us not forget, they were no pushover, as they had conquered Egypt for a brief time. Despite this, the local groups welcomed Dido without hostility. It appears that the locals were more interested in trade. However, this is something that the Phoenicians would say. So maybe it was true, maybe it wasn't, and despite their warm reception, they still weren't going to just give up their land to some strangers that came ashore. So this is where the legend gets interesting, as the locals allowed the queen and her followers to stay only on the land that a single ox hide could cover. In response, dido cut the hide into the thinnest of strips and enclosed the hill of Versa, of which this would become the citadel of Carthage. The king accepted this, but imposed a yearly rent Due to its location.
Speaker 1:The newly built city flourished and grew quickly, which, according to myths, led to numerous suitors asking for Dido's hand in marriage. According to myths, led to numerous suitors asking for Dido's hand in marriage. Yet she was still grief-stricken and she refused them all out of respect for her late husband. She eventually threw herself onto a funeral pyre because she was forced to marry a local king. Another version of the story says that she threw herself on the pyre because the Trojan hero, Aeneas, refused to marry her and sailed away to Italy.
Speaker 1:Like a lot of these ancient stories, these ones came from either Roman or Greek writers who had lived centuries after the founding of the city. As there is no surviving written records by the Carthaginians surviving written records by the Carthaginians, that fact alone is true for both the Carthaginians as well as the Phoenicians, because much of their history had been wiped clean for one reason or another. Most likely it's due to the Romans or the Greeks, who basically wanted to banish them from the historical written record. Another is that some of the records were given to the local Libyans and they did with what they pleased. This is obviously a problem, considering that they were the enemies through much of the history. So one really needs to question the validity of much of the ancient written records as it pertains to the Carthaginians and even their Phoenician cousins. Normally we can get around this issue through archaeological digs. The issue here is that Carthage is still inhabited, so it's not like you can just move buildings or other residences to get underneath.
Speaker 1:Another major issue is the same issue that we have with the Indus civilization, in that we haven't fully deciphered their language, so anything written won't be fully understood. Some scholars think they understand certain words or phrases, but these are often debated, so in the end oftentimes there isn't a general consensus. Now, with the power of AI, these tools can help with certain issues with long dead languages that may have scripts that we just haven't gotten a handle on because there isn't any Rosetta Stone. So in the end, hopefully, ai can kind of pick up the gaps that human knowledge just cannot decipher or understand. Now, the one thing that scholars generally agree on is that the first Phoenician settlement was founded in the 9th century BCE or the very early 8th century. This is also when the date of the story of Dido was arriving to Africa. Unlike Romulus and Remus, historians believe Dido and her brother were in fact real persons, but that doesn't mean that the city founding story was real, though.
Speaker 1:The one question that I always had was why weren't the Egyptians in the region to begin with? Why would the Phoenicians be the first outsiders to try to colonize North Africa? Well, the answer is really simple, in that the Egyptians didn't concern themselves too much with the outside world. In fact, the Egyptians didn't even have a single specific name that directly translates to non-Egyptian because their primary focus was on their own culture and their own land. So they left most of the external trade in the hands of foreigners, of which they created a port on the Nile, but they didn't have a coastal harbor until really the Greeks had conquered Egypt. So, in other words, they were more concerned with internal trade than taking to the sea and trading with people from Southern Europe or the Levant through the sea routes.
Speaker 1:Now, don't get it wrong Egypt still traded with people in the Levant and Arabia and other places nearby, but they did it through, basically, land caravans. They weren't building ships and sailing the Nile and out into the Mediterranean. That just wasn't a prerogative for them and in fact the priesthood would have frowned upon it because they saw the sea as a corrupting force. And of course they probably saw the sea as a corrupting force because this would have meant these foreign ideas that could have been dangerous to their own livelihood could have crept into Egypt. So that's why I think a lot of times they kind of looked inward, because the priest class didn't want to have any outside competition, because ultimately new ideas could have changed the way people viewed their own personal gods, which obviously changes their livelihood. So what I'm getting at is the idea that the Egyptians would have sailed the Mediterranean and set up shop in places like either Carthage or Utica would have been unthinkable because the only way they could have gotten there was if they traversed the western desert to Libya In the early days of Carthage. It's not really sure if they were initially a monarchy or not. The founding myth of Dido would indicate that it was a monarchy, but since there really isn't any early sources, it is really hard to tell one way or the other.
Speaker 1:The reason why Carthage worked from the get-go was the location. The reason why Carthage worked from the get-go was the location. The location was ideal in that it was on a hill that overlooked the shores beneath, which would have acted as a natural defense mechanism from the sea, and, as well as the land On the north side of the harbor laid fertile lands. These lands were initially farmlands that supplied the early inhabitants food, but as the city grew, this region became an early suburb. In addition, the city had ample freshwater springs capable of servicing the needs of the city and the farmers. However, it wasn't the spring water that made Carthage. It was the fantastic natural harbor of Tunis that had calm waters needed for a good harbor, while the city had easy access to inland as well. This enabled the people of Carthage to move goods from the sea to inland to the local Libyan population. This was potentially a key aspect that kept the locals from rising up right away against these foreigners if they knew that they can get them access to Finnish goods and commodities that they would have never had access to without the people of the new city.
Speaker 1:It sounds as though the people of the new city, or Carthage, who were Phoenicians, kind of just continued to do what they had been doing previously in the Levant, in that they began to produce their own goods, such as pottery and their famous crimson clothing dye from shellfish. Archaeologists also found evidence of iron foundries and other metallurgy shops from the earliest peoples of the city, which were used for local consumption or even export to other places. At some point, the Carthaginians developed the smelting technique of adding calcium to the furnaces, which would have neutralized the sulfur in the iron. That meant that they would have improved quality. Therefore, one could conclude that their iron products were highly desirable by their trade partners throughout the Mediterranean.
Speaker 1:In its early periods, carthage retained its Phoenician cultural heritage. My guess is and it's just a guess is it was probably sort of like when the early British came to the United States and Canada, as they probably just saw themselves as British, not Americans or Canadians, as they still held the idea of being British in high regard. So the people of Carthage may have felt the same way about being Phoenician. So what I'm trying to say is this is quite common. Look at the Assyrians, for example. They held their Babylonian heritage in high regard as well. Carthage, or the new city, however you want to call it was far away from the control of the Assyrians as such. This probably played a major part in the fact that they grew rather quickly. However, just like early America and Canada with Great Britain, the new city remained a part of the Phoenician network politically and economically.
Speaker 1:The success of Carthage was probably the reason why the Phoenicians looked to expand even further as they founded new Phoenician colonies on Sardinia during the 7th century BCE. In case you're wondering, sardinia is an Italian island west of the Italian peninsula. It's almost equal distance from Tunisia as it is to Rome, distance from Tunisia as it is to Rome. The expansion into Sardinia and Carthage meant that the Phoenicians were able to expand their crop yields and get access to more raw metal ore for finished goods in terms of metallurgy. Thus, they were able to expand its trade even further. The one metal that was becoming more and more important throughout the Mediterranean and the Near East was silver, with gold being important, but to a lesser extent. Whoever had control or easy access to it meant that they had mercantile power in the region.
Speaker 1:Tyre was kind of the big brother of all the Phoenician cities, and they were the ones who founded Carthage. Therefore, tyre was heavily relied upon by places like the Assyrians to pay tribute in silver, along with providing goods acquired through the Mediterranean, especially from Carthage, as Tyre was clearly in a vassal relationship and leaned on Carthage. Tyre was clearly in a vassal relationship and leaned on Carthage. Being a vassal meant that they paid tribute but weren't under direct control. All the Phoenician cities were basically in the same boat. However, the simple supply and demand curve played a major part in international trade because of Carthage, because in the late 7th century BCE, the value of silver began to collapse due to the oversupply. In fact, the collapse in the prices of silver may have been the underlying reason why Tyre revolted from the Babylonians. Let us not forget that it was their Carthage cousins who were probably most responsible for the oversupply of silver in the Near East, as they were importing a large amount of silver from the Iberian Peninsula, which is modern day Spain. Additionally, this is when Lydia also started minting its own electrum coins, so silver was flooding the market from Europe and Anatolia.
Speaker 1:Despite this, the unintended consequence was Carthage ended up breaking free from Phoenicia. This was because Tyre initially sided with the Egyptians over the Babylonians, who were the enemies of Babylon. As such, the Babylonians laid siege to Tyre for 13 years, but because it was on an island city, it never fell, but it was damaged physically and economically as its trade was almost totally cut off. In the end, the city surrendered, after which Tyre never recuperated completely. It was at this point that Carthage could no longer depend on Tyre and therefore broke free from it completely.
Speaker 1:Now, in a weird way, the Carthage-Venetian relationship reminds me a lot of how, when the United States broke free from Great Britain, that the United States was able to kind of thrive because Great Britain had a lot of laws in place that you know, with regards to property and minting coins and other things, that the people in the early days of America just felt constrained by British over-regulation. But the obvious difference being that the Phoenicians and the Carthaginians didn't go to war for Carthage to break free, like the United States and Great Britain went to war, even though Carthage had grown out from Phoenicia and Tyre in particular. Carthage had evolved into a new culture, sort of how the various countries in America has evolved into their own unique culture countries, and the Americas evolved into their own unique culture. Carthage assimilated the Greek and Egyptian influences, and then there was the additional immigration from Italian and North Africans that were not restricted by ethnicity or class, and they allowed for intermarriage. You add all these ingredients together and you end up building a society that is different from the one that their Phoenician forefathers had left them. In addition, the Carthaginians adopted certain Hellenistic military ideas, but they did not absorb them all. For example, they never adopted the mindset of an all-consuming military culture and sacrifice and honor. Like their Tyrian founders, they preferred to use their navy money and hire mercenaries If needed. They would eventually raise armies with great reluctance, as they typically wage limited wartime conflicts, usually for control of, or to protect or maintain crucial trade routes, along with their island bases and their resources. The combined army and navy would be a combination of fleets built and manned by Carthaginians with expandable mercenary armies.
Speaker 1:Sometime in the 7th century BCE, carthage had abandoned its traditional monarchy system and opted for a republic instead. Why this happened, no one really knows for sure, but it is quite clear that the Carthaginians were run by oligarchs, meaning that the country was in the hands of the aristocracy. So having a king kind of wouldn't make a lot of sense, since there was a ruling class that would override one single person. Andrew Lambert's book on sea power states indicated that, in order for society to collectively take to the sea and become a sea power state, it would need to be dependent upon a progressive and inclusive political system, which would have been primarily run by oligarchs and the social elites, and not by a hereditary monarchy. Andrew Lambert pointed out that Phoenicia and Carthage, along with Athens, britain, venice and the Dutch Republic, all became sea power states by collectively construction their cultural identity focusing on the sea.
Speaker 1:This collectivism is important because the sustained naval power entails very high costs and thus its political system would have to be geared towards shaping and serving the interests of trade. Therefore, the political leaders would have to ensure that the fleet is funded by taxing trade to fund their fleets, and these funds would be used to enhance their trade capabilities along with protecting their fleets and their trade routes. It would be very hard for this to happen if you had a monarchy, because what could probably happen is any particular king or queen would eventually potentially be destructive to the navy. In other words, it's kind of a roll of dice. It's kind of what Dan Collin would say about monarchies you roll the dice and you got a great king. You roll the dice again, you get another great king, and then you roll the dice again and snake eyes. Everything gets destroyed. So that's why having an oligarchy in charge of the government would have been a lot more conducive to having long-term success on the sea.
Speaker 1:The thing is, long-distance sea trade creates its own set of unique challenges and expenses. While you wouldn't have to worry about facing off with dangerous land armies, you would still have to worry about rival states and, of course, the dangerous pirates that roamed the Mediterranean. So the government would have to fund warships to defend off these potential threats. But there was also other long-term costs, such as maintenance fees and building new ships that were lost at sea, paying its sailors, building the infrastructure to store the ships. This new political system had to incentivize the merchants and the traders, along with the sailors who were willing to take the risks to the open seas, so therefore they would also need to get a share of the political power, and therefore an absolute monarchy just wouldn't work, especially when you're doing the long-distance trade thing. For one.
Speaker 1:Carthage was founded in part because the Phoenicians were looking for a way to get away from the Assyrians and the Babylonians, and they can easily do this when they had ships, so having a system that allowed for them to share in their gains politically makes sense, or else these merchants might not have come back home, just like the Phoenicians didn't come back home to the Levant, because they had to deal with the Assyrians, babylonians and later the Persians. Additionally, these foreign powers kind of annihilated the Levantine sea power, which would have created an opportunity for Athens and Carthage, because these were states that were well beyond the immediate reach of the Mesopotamian military power, so therefore they could develop into true sea powers. So ultimately, this is why the Algarcs took control of Carthage. In Carthage, genealogy would have obviously played a major role in where one would end up in society, but it was possible for one to work their way up from humble beginnings, unlike a lot of other places at this time. It was also possible for the reverse to happen. Whereas someone in the aristocracy could lose it all and the family could be in destitute and lose status evidence as to how one becomes a legal citizen, or even how they defined a citizen, or if they had limited citizenship just to men there were certain families that became much more powerful than the others, such as the Magonids and the Barsits. It also appears that commoners in Carthage could sometimes play a role in the leadership in the state, but it doesn't appear that it was all too often, as it mostly fell to the aristocracy or the party. But that could be a combination of the both of them.
Speaker 1:The assembly known as Ham in the Punic language, which meant the people, just like in Greek cities, the Ham gathered in the city's great marketplace. How exactly this assembly functioned is unknown, but it's possible that people voted in groups or maybe there were some sort of representations of certain neighborhoods or clans. But this is just pure speculation. But it appears that the power of the assembly grew through the centuries. The first mention of the ham was in the mid-6th century BCE.
Speaker 1:Aristotle claims that the ham was not only a place of voting but also a place of debate, and he praised his democratic nature. But let us not forget, the idea of democracy in Aristotle's days is a lot different than what we would think of as democracy today, as it was much less liberal. Back then there was also a high council that was called Adrium, which roughly translated into the Great Ones, which gives us an idea that there was kind of a superior governing body to that of the Ham and was probably also around a lot longer, or a bit longer than the Ham as well, and probably around during the times of the monarchy, and would have probably functioned as sort of an advisory council to the king. But that's just speculation, as such, a lot of historians tend to think that the high council, or the adrum, was probably responsible for deposing the monarchy and installing the republic. Thus the reason why it more or less had the supremacy of the state.
Speaker 1:In fact, all of its 200 to 300 members were from the aristocracy. Their functions were quite broad, from diplomatic relations, decisions on peace and war treaties, and members often acted as judges and acted on behalf of the state. In addition to the ham and the adoram, the state was also ruled by suffets, who were an elected pair of officials. These initially were a pair of judges, but the adoram had transformed them into executive level positions. Now, not much is known about this position. We are not exactly sure how they got to this position, but it appears that they must have had significant amounts of wealth and they probably were required to have certain ancestry to become a suffet.
Speaker 1:Aristotle wrote that the fact that he admired the Carthaginian system and how the three branches kind of balanced each other out. What he said was if the suffets and Adam clashed, the ham would break the tie. Now I get the sense from reading certain sources that a lot of people feel that the Romans got their form of government from Carthage and, in particular, the use of two councils would have come directly from Carthage, as they had elected soffits. And you can see the similarities in that the councils had to come from a very wealthy background and, more importantly, they had to have the right backgrounds. You can also see how their system is very similar to the Roman system of electing two councils. In fact, a lot of, if not most, historians would say that Rome did in fact get the idea from Carthage. Now, ultimately, because Carthage was founded from the wealthy Phoenician city-state of Tyre, based on long-distance trade, and now Carthage was independently wealthy from its Phoenician cousins and one of the wealthiest, if not wealthiest, states in the world at the time.
Speaker 1:Well, money pretty much is going to control most of, if not all aspects of government. Pretty much is going to control most of, if not all aspects of government. So, therefore, politics revolved around wealth. It is really not unlike today. If you think about it, the United States is the richest country in the world, not per capita, but the richest country in the world, and it is quickly devolving into a country run by oligarchs. And the same thing happened in Carthage. In Carthage you had to have enough money to run for the top office and money would have been used to apply for state office positions, or money would have been used for straight up bribery. In the United States we don't call it bribery, we just call it lobbying, or we pardon people after the fact. Or my favorite part is, in the United States you can get around by essentially breaking the law, by generating a ton of money knowing that you're breaking the law, and you can just beg for forgiveness afterward and pay a small fine of a few million dollars, which is peanuts when you just made a few billion dollars.
Speaker 1:The Carthaginians, just like Americans of today, were very fond of money and oriented their entire government and economy around it, pretty much as the United States is now. Of course, in the United States it's kind of ebbs and flows, but really since 1980, the United States has clearly been taking the view that generating money is the most important thing for the country. That's why the United States is the wealthiest country in the world, but it is also the most unhappy country in the world and Carthage carried a lot of their cultural norms forward from their Phoenician cousins and they also carried forward foreign people's views of them from their Phoenician cousins as well, and that a lot of people understood that their whole government and society was basically oriented around making money and profit. Society was basically oriented around making money and profit and that was the main goal, above all else because this was a merchant society and therefore a lot of other countries and foreign peoples developed a negative opinions of the Carthaginians. But it's worth noting that a lot of the information that we get regarding the Carthage and the Phoenicians comes from third-party sources that may not have had firsthand information. So a lot of the information was lost due to time and also a lot of people had the negative view so they would have kind of put out negative propaganda. Therefore, the feelings on Carthage has kind of evolved a bit over the years, as a lot of people think that this idea of money above all may have been an exaggeration to a certain extent and maybe it wasn't as bad as people have led others to believe it was. But I can see how things are happening in the United States, so I can see how a country that's dominated by the merchant class could put profits above all else. Because in the United States that's obviously what we're doing here we put profits above people's well-being, above people's welfare in particular. So why wouldn't this happen in an ancient society? And it should be noted that the government, because it was run by merchants had encouraged its merchants to basically trade anything they can get their hands on. So Carthage would have been dealing in raw materials such as crops and metals, including gold and silver, along with tin, copper and iron, but they would have also dealt in animal skins and ivory and timber. But then they also would have traded in finished goods, including textiles, with their purple dye cloth. Because, remember, the purple dye was what put the Phoenicians on the map to begin with. The purple dye was an indication of exclusivity and high-grade materials that were worn by the elites and the royals, and even today, the color purple is still associated with royalty. And even today, the color purple is still associated with royalty. No-transcript.
Speaker 1:According to Herodotus, the Carthaginians would lay out their wares on the beach, then they board their ships and light a signal fire. This fire would summon the local Libyans who would approach and place gold besides the goods. The Carthaginians would observe their offerings from their boats and would wait until they deemed the amount of gold satisfactory before returning to the shore to exchange the items. Each party would then take their respective goods. The sale would be completed without any party having to come in direct contact with the other. Now there is a lot to unpack here.
Speaker 1:With this claim made by Herodotus, the use of signifiers and the placement of goods and gold served as a form of non-verbal communication. But obviously, if this was true, there would have had to have been some kind of prior communications or the establishment of this procedure for trade to begin with. But either way, herodotus makes it appear that these actions conveyed intentions and arrangements without the need of spoken language. These actions conveyed intentions and arrangements without the need of spoken language. Of course, this would have been an obvious thing, because if they didn't have a means to communicate through language, they'd have to have another way to communicate that they wanted to make trade deals. So, since they didn't have any form of translators, this method would have highlighted the importance of using symbols and actions in conveying trust and establishing trade agreements. Since it's obvious that there weren't any written contracts, trade would have relied upon honesty, social norms, reputation and, of course, non-verbal communication, and the fact that Carthage, and the Phoenicians for that matter, had such long-standing trade with various ethnic groups from various parts of the world, one could easily have concluded that they held up their end of the bargain and operated ethically when dealing with people that had foreign language and foreign customs. Herodotus appears to make the Carthaginians seem fair and respectful, as no one was ever cheated in these deals. Therefore, he presented an image of mutual respect and honest economic interaction between two parties. Now I find this part kind of interesting because Herodotus and a lot of other Greek and Roman writers were kind of notorious for taking their shots at the Carthaginians and the Phoenicians, so in a weird way, it's kind of unusual to see Greek and Roman writers write about them in a fair and equitable way.
Speaker 1:Since the government was run by merchants, the government wanted to make sure that long-distance trade would have been safe as possible. The one thing is, the open seas have always brought on dangerous conditions. This danger can come in various forms. For one, mother Nature was unpredictable, as violent storms could just appear out of nowhere and wreak havoc and death and loss of revenue. The other concern would have been pirates, which in many circumstances would have been just as equally as bad. And the third thing would have been foreign competition. So the government couldn't do anything about mother nature, but it could do something about pirates and competition. The first thing it did would have been protecting its merchant fleets with its military fleet, and, of course, using the navy would have made the merchants a lot safer when they're sailing in the open seas. The Romans were pretty notorious for this. Whenever they got reports of pirate activity in certain places, they took extreme measures to put the piracy down. So not only did they sink their ships in the open seas, they would also chase them down over land.
Speaker 1:I did mention that there was a third aspect that makes long-distance trade less profitable, in that there was the prospect of foreign competition. Therefore, the government of Carthage actively looked to do certain trade treaties and trade deals with foreign governments that would have made sure that both sides didn't encroach into each other's territories. This was set up so that they would have trade dominance or establish new markets for their goods. For example, carthage and Rome signed a trade treaty in 509 BCE which would have opened up trade for Carthage and set boundaries for both sides. At this point. Carthage was clearly the dominant player in this deal, so they had most of the leverage. Now, despite the fact that Carthage was this massive force in the Mediterranean and Rome, was this really kind of tiny city-state in the middle of Italy? They were off to a good start. It appears that both sides viewed each other as a potential place for growth opportunities and even a place where they could share knowledge and wisdom, especially when it comes to the supernatural.
Speaker 1:One notable convergence of an aspect of religion that was shared by both sides was their reverence for the god of commerce. It shouldn't be surprised that Carthage worshipped the deity of trade, whom they believed was an invocation of Mercury, the Roman god of finance, grains, trade, luck, tricks and thieves. This shared belief facilitated a deeper cultural and spiritual connection between the two civilizations. The name Mercury is derived from the Latin word mercs, meaning merchandise. The etymological connection extends to mercari, which means to trade or exchange, and mercis, meaning wages. This linguistic association underscores the significance of trade and commerce in Roman society, along with its parallels in the Carthage culture. Merchants and traders from both civilizations invoked Mercury for success in their endeavors, believing that his favor would bring prosperity and protection the uncertainties of trade. This shared invocation of Mercury as a divine protector of commerce created a spiritual bond that transcended rivalries, whether it was political or, later, military.
Speaker 1:One thing that does start to change for Carthage was the fact that they started to expand into the African hinterland, and because of that you start to see a new class of citizens emerge, that is, the wealthy landowner, not the wealthy merchant. So now not all the aristocrats are tied to the seas. This also meant that the immediate farmlands outside the city proper and the suburbs would have been capable of feeding its entire population and producing a surplus. In fact, aristotle and other ancient writers had praised the people of Carthage in their abilities to grow crops. Praised the people of Carthage and their abilities to grow crops. Their expertise was so well known that a retired general wrote a book, or basically manual, on farming that was used by the Romans, along with a few other writings of the Carthaginian peoples that were saved after the Romans destroyed Carthage. Unfortunately, the entire manuscript wasn't saved, as only excerpts from the Roman authors who referenced the Carthaginian general were saved, and I'm getting a little ahead of myself here. But the reason why a lot of these manuscripts and certain writings of the people of Carthage wasn't saved because when Rome destroyed Carthage, it basically wanted to wipe its memory off the map. So that's why at the beginning of the show, in the beginning of the Phoenicians episode, I kind of mentioned that basically everything is secondhand sources and that is due to the fact that when, especially Carthage, when, they were destroyed, basically they just want to wipe any kind of reference them away. So no one really knows for sure what happened in a lot of circumstances. So, like I said, this all comes from secondhand information and that obviously is a problem, because the secondhand information is people that have warred with Carthage, so you're probably not going to get the most honest opinions or even facts.
Speaker 1:As it pertains to Carthage, as Carthage was expanding into Africa and they were prominent merchants, it would only make sense that they would expand trade into Africa. Just like the Phoenicians, they relied upon overland trade as well. Carthage had overland trade routes into Africa, utilizing the caravan routes across the Sahara Desert to trade with indigenous populations in the interior of the continent. They would primarily acquire goods like gold, ivory and other African commodities. Acquire goods like gold, ivory and other African commodities. Now, this trade was facilitated by taking over existing Berber trading networks along the North African coast. Some historians believed a Carthaginian named Mago even crossed the desert several times to facilitate this trade. These exchanges were often conducted through intermediary tribes along the trade routes. As it appears that Carthage was looking for a Trans-Saharan trade route, some of these trade routes had rudimentary roads that were established before they started to trade in the interior, and these roads would have often been expanded upon by the Romans after they had conquered Carthage.
Speaker 1:While Carthage is expanding its trade routes into the interior of Africa and establishing trade treaties throughout the Mediterranean, there was one of the great inventions that was taking place in Lydia, which was located in the western half of Anatolia. In the 6th century BCE, they started minting electrum coins, which were a mix of silver and gold. This invention well, it wasn't picked up by everybody immediately, but it did make trade much more efficient. It did make trade much more efficient. The Phoenicians in particular were somewhat slow to pick up on this, but they eventually started minting their own coins as well. Carthage began minting coins in the late or early 4th century BCE.
Speaker 1:The fact that Carthage and Phoenicia were a bit behind the curve does give a bit of an indication that they may have had a bit of a conservative streak and that they may not have been quick to adapt to change as quickly as one might think they would have, which is quite strange and odd considering that they were merchants and they needed to rely on technology as their advantage because they were smaller and they were dealing with much bigger land powers, especially the Phoenicians. So therefore, when it comes to coinage, before they were minting coins they would have still been relying on using ingots of metal in trade, and the most likely scenario would have been that they had developed a credit system and kind of settled up at a given time using the agreed upon metal, such as silver, as the medium of exchange. Once coinage came into play and there wasn't enough coins to complete the transaction, they would have relied on a credit system. This would be a very common system that they would have used in medieval and early renaissance Europe, because they were constantly dealing with coin shortages. One of the reasons why they may have been a little late to the game with regards to coinage could be due to the fact that they did a lot of transactions with the people of the western Mediterranean, who were much less developed economically in comparison to the people in the East, in Mesopotamia, iran and Anatolia, for example. Another thing, too, is a lot of the people that adopted coinage early on were using it as a means to pay soldiers and mercenaries. If this is the case and Carthage really isn't warring with a lot of people at this time the idea of paying mercenaries wasn't necessarily needed at this particular point.
Speaker 1:Therefore, setting up a credit system where they would settle up at a specific time would have made a lot of sense for them. Would have made a lot of sense for them and if you really don't understand what I'm getting at, it was they would have tracked all their transactions and then, at a specific date, they would have had a transfer of the agreed upon item. It was usually something like silver or it could have been copper, and that would have been done in a large amount at the specific time that they had in the near future as part of the agreement. And this would always be set up because most of the time or I shouldn't say most of the time, but a lot of the times when they did this particular trade, whatever it may be usually the one side didn't have the metals that they were looking for on hand. Usually the one side didn't have the metals that they were looking for on hand. I just mentioned it a few moments ago, but this was very common in medieval Europe. No-transcript fairs would have happened all over Europe.
Speaker 1:But obviously I'm getting way ahead of myself because that's not part of Carthage, but I just kind of wanted you to get an idea of how the system would have worked as it pertains to credit. Now I'm bringing all this up specifically because the one thing that I was always taught in college, undergrad and even, I think, grad school, but I can't recall because it's been a while I was always taught that barter was how transactions would have been done prior to any kind of money that was created, like coins when I say money, I mean coins or if there was some kind of silver or whatever it was. But the thing is about barter is. There's been no historical evidence of it happening. So therefore, that's why a lot of people have been shifting of late to say, well, it wasn't barter, it was more of a credit system that they had set up. So it wasn't like people were going to go and exchange purple dyed fabrics, for the person didn't have silver or even gold or sometimes copper on hand. They just set up a system and said OK, we're going to make a deal where I'll give you this now and then you'll pay me later at a specific time.
Speaker 1:The fact is is barter was always assumed as a primary means of exchange and I think it's because even on a smaller scale, people will barter even to this day. But on a large scale trade network that the Phoenicians and then the people of Carthage had set up, barter was just impossible. It was too cumbersome and there would have to be the double coincidence of wants and just in general it just wouldn't work for most transactions. And the biggest reason why there's been a shift that barter really wasn't what was going on is because there just have not been historical written records to confirm that, written records to confirm that, and in a way Herodotus kind of backs that claim up because what he said was Carthage only accepted gold. But that probably isn't accurate, especially in the Iberian Peninsula, because they had large reserves of silver and silver was an accepted means of transfer and really the most common medium of exchange throughout the Near East. When I say Near East, I'm basically referring to Western Asia, so we're talking the Mesopotamia, the Levant, anatolia, places like that, and even Iran, for that matter and the Near East, gold was used as a medium of exchange, but generally speaking, it was only used when a luxury item was being purchased. In other words, gold as a medium of exchange was quite rare. So the idea of Herodotus saying that Carthage would only accept gold kind of doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 1:To be honest with you, in this episode my goal was to more or less lay the groundwork as how Carthage came to be and then eventually became one of the most successful and wealthiest states in the ancient world. This was all done, obviously, of trade, and they just picked up where their Phoenician forefathers had left off. Now, at this point in the story, carthage is that the Greeks were starting to expand their sphere of influence and they were becoming a great naval power and therefore they wanted to establish themselves in Sicily. But the problem for Carthage was Sicily was one of their most prized possessions at the time. So obviously, if you have Carthage on one side of the island and Greeks on the other side, it's almost certain that there's going to be some kind of conflicts. And this is when Carthage kind of goes from just a merchant power to a navy power, and this right here is an extreme example of a change in philosophy of the people of Carthage compared to their Phoenician forefathers, because their Phoenician forefathers really didn't want any part of any kind of military conflicts. If they were involved in a military conflict, say with the Greeks, they would have been more or less forced to because they were under Persian rule. In this particular case, carthage is the ones that are kind of the aggressors in Sicily. But that's for the next episode. In the next episode I'll kind of get a little bit more into the history of Carthage and how they had many conflicts with the Greeks and eventually this kind of bleeds over even to their problems with Rome. But that's for the next couple episodes. If you like what you hear and want to donate to the show, you can visit us at patreoncom slash history of money banking trade or you can visit our website at moneybankingtradecom. Also, you can help out the show a ton by leaving a five star review ton by leaving a five-star review.
Speaker 1:Also recently I started to make the show into video format. The shows are a bit more formal and if you could stop by the show and like and subscribe at Money Banking Trade in YouTube format. I've already created a couple episodes. They are quite long because what I did is I combined all my Sumer episodes and then Babylon episodes to make one episode. So there's two videos One is Sumer, one is Babylon. However, going forward, I plan on start jumping around in the timeline, being around in the timeline. For example, in the next episode that I will post to YouTube, it's going to be about the rise of the goldsmiths in 1600 England and how it forever changed banking. And once again, that's at YouTube, at Money Banking Trade. Thank you very much. I'll talk to you soon.
