Introduction
One can examine the many
complex changes of day to day life that have taken place in the Mediterranean
context which are presented as a kaleidoscope of deceptions. In any
case the image of North Africa in Europe and that of Europe in North
Africa bring population flows that meet in discordant manner. So the
positions taken up in cultural and social points of view remain distant.
Around Europe they became a crown of the "ancient" as well
as of the "different"; this creates a subtle anguish which
can be felt when faced with deep but not always seen symptoms, almost
denied to a real knowledge.
With a mixture of curiosity
and many doubts, we have summoned the past and the present, and collected
documents. Hard work had to be done to restore an image of that kaleidoscope,
and to talk about an excursion through the history of the many peoples
who landed in Tunisia, an excursion voluntarily full of impulses on
a cognitive basis with many empty spaces. Our aim is to attempt not
to give answers that may be biased, but to focus on re-reading some
aspects that encourage the reader to imagine some of the answers to
some of the questions (What is the geographical space of Tunisia? Tunisia
is a Western or an Eastern country? Why historically was Tunisia only
a penetration land? Why is political organization constantly based on
the image of the leader invested with full powers? Why was Tunisia,
in the past considered to be the granary of Rome, is actually obliged
to fight desertification? Why has Tunisia been denied its memory, as
though it were struck by Alzheimer disease? Why has the elite administrated
the country in thirds? Where is Tunisia going?…)
Obviously these are questions
that do not only regard Tunisia, but are questions that seem to be not
asked in Tunisia. Meanwhile their answers could help us apply a line
of more believable development global politics that go much further
than the simple "mise à niveau" which
the European Union imagined to accompany the Association Agreements.
On the other hand, we endeavored
to re-read Tunisia history, one of the more ancient of the world, not
by photograms, nor according to an unique interpretative model -- the
history as a space-movement according to Braudel for example -- but
researching its trajectory which trace the path of history, our personal
one.
Despite its limits, this
historical work should be considered to be at the same time exercises
of knowledge, criticism and self-criticism.
Criticism most of all, which
means resistance to overhanging nothing, dreaming an advanced Tunisia
and an advanced North Africa, most of all in terms of political institutions
and of cultural and social works. It is useful to note what Benedetto
Croce said in his History of Europe in the XIXth Century.
"At the end of imperial incidents and 'despotic and genial'
ideologies for centuries -- sometimes for a generation -- in every people
hope brightens again to make them able of redefining their cultural
and territorial integrity, and of reconstructing their own future of
freedom. This hope feeds on delusions and failures which come to light".
This work serves to be grateful
to Tunisia and its kind and generous people. They have donated themselves
and the fruits of their labor and land to others throughout many centuries.
The work is composed of five
volumes corresponding to as many historical moments of the country life.
- Volume 1. Carthage
Missionary of Civilization
- Volume 2. Roman and Christian
Time
- Volume 3. The Arab Conquest
- Volume 4. The Long Night
- Volume 5. The Republic
Carthage Missionary of
Civilization, the first volume, at present under printing preparation,
is divided into five parts:
PARTE
ONE: The environment
Chapter I: The
physical environment (Position and denomination; the mountains; the
desert; the oasis; tablelands and hills & plains)
The geographical space of
North Africa has peculiar characteristics:
The difference of appellatives:
Libya in the Homeric poems, Numidia and Roman Africa, Maghreb and Gesirat
al-Maghreb after the Arabs, Barbaria in the Middle Ages, French North
Africa, including Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, Arab Maghreb Union at
present from Libya to Mauritania;
The near insularity of the
region practically closed at three sides, by the Atlantic and the Desert,
making it easier to enter than to leave. So, the history of Maghreb
is the history of its invaders who came subsequently from East and from
West, in search of space, with contrasting interests and ideologies;
Even though Maghreb is separated
from Europe, the mountains hang together from one to the other side
of Mediterranean Sea, and are arranged in coherent systems. One bridge
united Sicily to Tunisia; another one, the Bethic bridge, existed between
Spain and Morocco;
Maghreb, a longed for rich
land, is a mosaic of spaces (high mountains, deserts, oasis, hills,
plains and sea emporium) and peoples.
Chapter II: Human
Environment (the pre-historic periods; the Carthaginian period)
North Africa was the seat
whether of the most ancient Paleolithic civilizations (the homo habilis
of Ain Hanech in Algeria goes back to more than a million years ago),
or of the Neolithic, the most advanced in history -- the Ibero-Maurusian
and Capsian. It is in the Desert that the Neolithic civilization shall
affirm and obtain its first successes, as testified particularly by
the magnificent rock paintings of the Hoggar and Tibetsi, which show
a great artistic refinement. A radical change in social behavior can
be noted starting from 3,000 B.C. The proto-historic necropolis spread,
which seem to indicate the existence of hierarchical social organization,
as testimonies by the famous tomb of Tin Hinan the Tuareg Queen, which
was found in Abelessa (Tamanrasset, Algeria). The progressive transition
towards forms of agricultural life was the consequence of the great
climatic fluctuations. It seems to have been dictated by the necessity
and the struggle against adversity, than by opportunity reasons. In
the 5th century B.C., Herodotus gave a description of the
peoples that settled in Maghreb. While already dominated by Greeks and
Phoenicians, or in contact with them, he brought to mind some of their
customs. He indicated: "The Greeks took the style of dress
and the aegis which adorns the Athena statues from the women of Libya".
There was never a real, long-lasting hostility between Carthaginian
and Berbers. Otherwise one could not explain why for centuries the small
Punic centers were conserved, dislocated like a long and fragile crown
along the coast of Numidia (Tripolitania, Tunisia and Algeria) and of
Mauritania (Morocco) and even today make
up the urban armor of North Africa.
PART
TWO: The Phoenicians
Chapter I: Phoenicia
(Who were the Phoenicians? What were Phoenicia, woodwork, and the basis
of the Phoenician development)?
Phoenicia, a combination
of sea and forests, starts with an interface -- fight between Byblos,
Egypt and the sea peoples. The Phoenicians could pass from being woodcutters
and wood-traders on raft, to great high seas navigators. After having
first developed a suitable technology for this form of navigation, came
a know how in nearly all economic sectors, from exploitation of mineral
and agricultural resources, to their transformation, and commercialization
through an extraordinary chain of distribution.
Chapter II: The
Phoenician Economy (the Phoenician and Tyre purple; the Phoenicians
glass artisans; the Phoenicians precious metals artisans; the Phoenicians
ceramics artisans; the Phoenicians ivory artisans; the Phoenicians sailors;
the Phoenicians traders; the Phoenicians shedders
of economic well being)
The Phoenicians did not restrict
themselves to offering luxury products and qualified services at high
prices to the empires that surrounded them, but they were the first
producers to have flooded the markets with their products. They did
so for the masses also, at prices so low that poorer people and classes
could buy them.
Chapter III: The
Phoenician culture (the Phoenicians alphabet inventors; the Phoenicians
urbanites; the Phoenicians architects; the Phoenicians artists)
Apart from being the first
shedders of economic well being, the Phoenicians were the first diffusers
of culture at mass level, overcoming the illiteracy with the invention
of a simplified alphabet which a kid could learn in one year. The Greeks
contribution was limited to the systematic introduction of vowels using
the sign of the redundant consonants of the Phoenician alphabet.
The Phoenician cities rise
on promontories or on islands near the coast and mirror the need of
defense and settlement of a people of navigators. They preferred the
lagoon waters because they did not damage the keels. A noticeable technical
apparatus was required not only for the site choice and the settlement
edification, but for its conservation and defense too. Tyre may be the
most eloquent example from this point of view.
Moreover, Tyre was a city
full of temples, palaces, squares and markets, endowed with a powerful
defense system of walls, towers and gates.
The Phoenician workers were
so estimated that the King Solomon employed them without worrying about
expenses.
The Phoenician cultural and
artistic production had to suffer the affront of the conquering peoples
and shows either its own creativity or the Egyptian and Greek influences
consecutively.
Chapter IV: The
Phoenician worship (priests, rites and rituals; the Pantheon of Byblos;
the Pantheon of Sidon; the Pantheon of Tyre; life after death)
According to the evidence
given by Philo of Byblos who asserts to have translated his "Phoenician
History" into Greek language from a Phoenician original written
by Sanchoniathon from Beric, The Phoenicians were monotheists and Baal
was adored as their only one God. Consequently, when polytheism was
introduced Baal remains the principal divinity.
He was known by other names:
Baal Shamaim, El, Melek, Ram, Elion, and Adonai. His female equivalent
was Baalat, Ashtart, Elat and, in Carthage, Tanit (the difficulty in
transcription of Phoenician names is due to the absence of vowels in
the alphabet) -- connected to the cult of fertility, of love and of
war.
The name El (the High, He,
God) later may become one of the Lord of Jews, Jehovah, then of Muslim's
Allah. At the pre-Islamic time, in Arabia, "Allat" was the
name of one of the three female divinities adored in the temple of Mecca
(and a source that enriched the Meccans); the other two were al-Uzza
and al-Manat. The Koran refused faith in them, after a short time of
uncertainty connected to the famous episode of Satanic Verses,
which would have originally followed verse 20 from sura 53, called of
the "Star". When the Prophet Muhammad realized the demonic
origin of such an inspiration, he eliminated the verses at issue from
the Sacred Book. The title of the novel "The Satanic Verses"
written by Salman Rushdie is connected to that episode. It caused
a large indignation among Muslims, mostly Shiites, and brought the fatwa
sentencing him to death. The author, thereafter, was forced to live
in hiding.
Chapter V: The
Phoenician seen by their enemies (The Phoenicians and the Western; the
Phoenicians and the sacrifice of kids; the Phoenicians and the Jews)
Phoenician and Carthaginian
history is noted most of all through writings (that need re-writing)
of their Greek and Latin enemies. We just know through the writings
of Josephus that very detailed annals are existing at Tyre, describing
the events that had involved the city-state in the ancient times and
were destroyed.
The image of Phoenicians
drawn by Homer finds perfection in Herodotus, then followed by Polybio,
Livy, Virgil, Cicero and the others, who supplied the ideological basis,
having recourse to ambiguity and incorrect narratives.
The Latin writers propagated
the idea that Carthaginian had barbarian usage and customs, such as
the children sacrifice to the Gods, and coined a series of vocabulary
such as "cannibalism", after the Roman defeat at Canne by
Hannibal. Later, Saint Jerome, apart from the Phoenician kids holocaust,
flogged the Punic erotic poems, making them pernicious and dissolute.
Only recently, have we begun to interpret the function of the Tophet
as a zone destined to collect the remains of the children precociously
died. Israel's relationship with the Phoenicians, economically speaking
was excellent. It was nearly biological, Tyre being a door open to the
sea, and to the world trading at that time. However, politically and
theologically, in other words ideologically, it was nearly catastrophic.
Chapter VI: Phoenicia
history in brief (The Phoenician expansion until the foundation of Carthage;
from the Assyrian to the Babylonian domination; the Greek-Persian wars;
Alexander the Macedonian; Phoenicia contested between the Ptolomies,
Selucides and Aramenians; the Hellenistic impact on Phoenicia; Phoenicia
until the Arab conquest)
Phoenicia history is difficult
to go into deeply due to the lack of witnesses; it is the history of
a tenacious people who knew how to reconstruct its cities-state, with
renovated fervor after each invasion. At the beginning of the 4th
century B.C., there was an important and ephemeral political development.
Arade and its new foundation Tripoli, Sidon and Tyre constituted a federation
having a Parliament seated in Tripoli, remembered by Diodorus Siculus;
it was the first of its kind in all the Mediterranean World. After Alexander
The Great, there were big changes, due to the destruction, to the domination
and compromises, which lead to a great endogenous cultural impoverishment.
The presence of great Phoenician figures such as Zeno of Citium, Chrisippe
of Soli or Thalis of Miletus, kept from oblivion the fact that the Greek
language was imposed on the Phoenicians instead of their language. Further,
pagan religion itself of which Israel was afraid of was practically
converted to the cult of the Greek gods. Consequently, after a period
of anarchy, Phoenicia had a period of peace under the Roman emperors
and the first Christian emperors. They gave Byretus, Tyre and Sidon
colonies status. In the 6th century, a group of persecuted
Christians created, in the North Lebanon, the Maronite Church. In 630,
Arabs conquered Phoenicia, without encountering resistance, after thirty
years of Persian and Byzantine pillaging.
PART
THREE: Carthage missionary of civilization
Chapter I. Carthaginian
settlement (Carthage foundation and Western mythology; the city)
After the venture of the
city, the annals of Carthage would be abandoned by Romans to Micipsa
son of Massinissa, who transmitted to Sallustio and served for his "Jugurthian
War"; however, the work remained incomplete and there was no
trace of that documents.
Carthage was probably founded
as a Phoenician settlement. Elissa -- Dido founded their shelter and
became queen, to escape with a group of supporters from her brother
Pygmalion, ill-disposed forwards divided the power at Tyre with her.
Her mythological story with Aeneas and her other one with Jarbas, King
of Massils and Getules, concluded with her suicide. However, that showed
what a strong woman she was and how suitable to reign over Carthaginian
people. Thereafter, she remained the object of reverence and imitation
in the subsequent centuries. Carthage had to know the shoah and the
havoc, and so it is difficult to imagine, apart from the strong emotion
that wrongs the heart of any visitor, that these places contained the
richest and most beautiful port of the ancient times, described by Appian.
The City could have had more than half a million inhabitants.
Chapter II: Carthaginian
State (The institutions; the culture; Phoenician-Carthaginian cult)
The Carthaginian regime,
which was first monarchical then transformed into republican, did not
stop for one moment the course of successes in virtue of the wisdom
of the founders. During the last period, the people curtailed the powers
of the Senate, composed of the representatives of the noble rich families
on the initiative of the Barca family. It is possible that that the
same political system was enforced in the other Punic cities.
The little that remains of
the culture and Carthaginian art gives evidence to its intrinsic greatness
and shows the striking interconnection between Mediterranean peoples.
Chapter III: Carthaginian
economy (Agriculture: cereals, viticulture; olive oil; Industry: extractive
and of transformation; craftsmanship; naval docks; services: trading,
monetary circulation, tax, salt)
Carthaginians as Phoenician
people are rightly famous for being navigators and traders; no other
people in comparison to them deserved to be named missionary of civilization,
thanks to the device agricultural, forestry and livestock developed
by them. At the time of their arriving in North Africa, the Phoenicians
found a fertile land, ideal for cereals, viticulture, olive and livestock,
but they had the know how of soil conservation. Columella called "father
of the economy of the country" Mago, author of an agronomical
treatise with at least 28 volumes, written in Punic language, on the
basis of previous knowledge and on direct observation.
PART
FOUR: Carthaginian expansion
Chapter I: In
Africa (Carthaginian centers in Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Libya)
Proceeding West, along the
coast of North Africa, are listed the Punic centers. "Sic
transit gloria mundi": many centers today are just archeological
sites that related to places of the dead. Many centers however still
exist and represent the urban skeleton of North Africa: Sousse, Tabarca,
Bizerte, Jerba, Annaba, Constantine, Skikda, Melilla (Sp.), Essaouira,
Rabat, Tripoli, etc. About Tipasa, Camus wrote: "elle me
donne l'orgueil de ma condition d'homme".
Chapter II: In
West (Crete, Cyprus, Spain, Sardinia, Sicily, and Malta)
There is a short list of
the various Phoenician and Carthaginian settlements, of the finds discovered
and of the function that they had in the economic life of Punic people.
PART
FIVE: The wars against Carthage
Chapter I: The
Greek-Carthaginian wars (the Greek emigration to Cyrenaica; Alalia battle;
Hymera battle; the wars of Agatocles; the wars of Pyrrhus)
The Phoenician-Punic expansion
in the Mediterranean was partially due to a sort of new economy based
on creativity, trading and communications. In the case of Greece, it
treated colonization was peaceful in the beginning. It alleviated the
demographic pressure at home, where the soil aridity in various zones
of the country, the backwardness of the agriculture techniques and the
latifundium did not allow for the production of sufficient means of
subsistence for increasingly growing masses. Moreover, the Greek colonization
derived from heterogeneous and multiethnic origin, led to reproduce
the same contradictions, the same internal struggles, and the same home
political and cultural life too. The Alalia victory (535 B.C.), the
first real battle in the Mediterranean, signed a breaking point in the
trading equilibrium which was reached in previous centuries between
Etruscans, Greeks and Carthaginians, the point of descent of the brief
Etruscan parabola, and the appearance of the Latin-Cuman alliance.
Hymera defeat, fifty years
later, gave Syracuse glory and wealth. Syracuse started expansionist
politics to the Athena prejudice that had to surrender arms, later to
Sparta and Persia too. The struggle against Carthage continued, with
oscillating and devastating issues, until the arrival of the Romans
who took advantage of the favorable situation.
Chapter II: The
Roman-Carthaginian first war (the causes; Milazzo battle; Ecnomo battle;
the landing at Clupea and the death of Attilius Regulus; Drepana battle;
Egadi battle; reasons and consequences of the Roman victory; The Mercenaries
Revolt)
The first war lashed by Rome
against Carthage aimed at the conquest of Sicily, according to a strategic,
military and economic plan. Carthage did not know or foresee the Roman
danger, nor face it with all the necessary energy, having also to fight
against the cities of Graecia Magna, and affront the rebellions for
independence in Africa. That began to look favorably at the rising Roman
empire. Thereafter there were two constants in the North African politics:
to look at the new colonialism with favor against the ancient one --contro
l'antico -- and to face it through the division and the betrayals
of leaders under the instigation of the new conquerors. Mathos was against
Narrhavas and both were in love with the beautiful Salammbò,
daughter of Hamilcar, and eventually committed suicide. Apart from Sicily,
Rome took possession of Sardinia and started piracy along the African
coast.
Chapter III: The
Roman-Numidian-Carthaginian second war (the causes; Hannibal victorious
period; the crisis; reverses of fortune; Carthaginian oligarchy and
the Party of peace; the struggle between patricians and the preparations
for landing in Africa; Massinissa conquests the thrown of Numidia, Roman
protectorate; Zama defeat) Twenty years later, Rome
renews hostility against Carthage for the possession of Spain, where
the Barca had started to rebuild a new powerful empire. At the beginning,
it had to undergo these especially because of Hannibal genius inflicted
heavy loses on Roman armies. Hannibal was unable to terminate his work,
for the political opposition at home, more than for the Roman cleverness.
Again the Romans knew how to assure the Numide support, which was decisive
during the last battle fought on the African soil. Sifax against Massinissa
contended the throne of Numidia, while both of them were in love with
the beautiful Sophonisbe, daughter of Hasdrubal son of Gisco, and who
committed suicide. Massinissa was decisive in the Roman victory at Zama
against Hannibal and took the throne of Numidia, under the Roman protectorate.
Chapter IV: The
Roman-Numidian-Carthaginian third war (the Shoah of Carthage, Roman
cannibalism)
50 years later, Rome still
found the excuse, the medium of Massinissa interpose, to annihilate
Carthage which still opposed its expansion in Africa. The city, which
Massinissa hoped to have as the capital of his kingdom, was razed. Carthage
continued to burn for seventeen consecutive days under orders of Scipio
Aemilianus. The Scipio name is still invoked today in the Italian National
anthem, which is disquieting, to say the least.
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