Punics
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Punics, (from latin Punicus meaning Phoenician and a synonym of Barbarous)were a group of Western Semetic speaking peoples in North Africa who were descended from the Phoenicians and Canaanites. Being expert sailors, they controlled a massive empire centered at Carthage that, at its peak in the 2nd century BCE, stretched from Egypt to Morocco and Spain that also controlled most of the islands in the Western Mediterranean Sea. They took their religion from their Phoenician forefathers, who worshiped Baal Hammon and Melqart, and merged it with African deities and some Greek and Egyptian, such as Apollo, Tanit, and Dionysis, even depicting Baal Hammon in human form looking much like the Greek god Zeus. Their culture became a melting pot, since Carthage was a major hub of trade in the known world, but they still kept many of their old cultural identities and practices, such as possible child sacrifice. Being trade rivals with Magna Grecia, they had several clashes with them over the island of Sicily, See the Sicilian Wars. They eventually fought Rome in the Punic Wars, but lost due to being outnumbered, lack of full governmental involvement, and reliance on their navy as the power of their military. They were eventually incorporated into the Roman Republic in 146BCE with the destruction of Carthage.
