Carthage was a power that dominated the western Mediterranean for almost six centuries before its fall to Rome. The history of the realm and its Carthaginians was subsumed by their conquerors and, along the way, the story of the real Carthage was lost. In this landmark new history, Eve MacDonald tells the essential story of the lost culture of Carthage and of its forgotten people, using archaeological analysis to uncover the history behind the legend. A journey that takes us the Phoenician Levant of the early Iron Age to the Atlantic and all along the coast of Africa, the book puts the city and the story of North Africa once again at the centre of Mediterranean history. Reclaimed from the Romans, this is the Carthaginian version of the tale, revealing to us that, without Carthage, there would be no Rome.