Phoenicians founded Carthage ('New City' in Phoenician) in 814 BC. Initially a dependency of the Phoenician state of Tyre, Carthage gained independence around 650 BC and established its political hegemony over other Phoenician settlements throughout the western Mediterranean,
For much of its history, Carthage was on hostile terms with the Greeks in Sicily and with the Roman Republic; tensions led to a series of armed conflicts known as the Sicilian Wars (c. 600–265 BC) and the Punic Wars (264–146 BC) respectively. In 146 BC, after the third and final Punic War, Roman forces razed Carthage to the ground and nearly all of the other Phoenician city-states subsequently fell into Roman hands. Romans refouned Carthage on the same site one century later.
