Phoenician–Punic literature

This is one of the areas where the most information is available, since it is known that after the end of the Third Punic War, the Roman Senate decided to translate an encyclopedic treaty on agronomy written by Mago - considered by Columella as the father of Agronomy - into Latin. This treaty comprised 28 books - of which 66 fragments have been preserved.[7] It includes topics such as viticulture, topography, veterinary medicine, beekeeping, and fruit arboriculture, as well as recommendations defending the idea that the properties should not be too large and that the owner should not be absent.

Mago may not have been the only Carthaginian treatisist concerned with these topics, since Columella clearly indicates that there were several other writers focusing on the subject. However, He does not specify who they might have been or the depth of their work - with the exception of one Amilcar.[4]

Philosophical works are likely to have been written even if there is little evidence, since it is known that in Carthage as well as in Gadir there were Platonic and Pythagorean schools, currents that seem to have been widely accepted in the colonial Phoenician sphere. We only know of works by Moderatus, of the Gaditan school, who wrote in Greek.[4] A treaty on philosophy is attributed to Sanchuniathon - of which there is no record other than a simple mention.[8]

The fragments of Sanchuniathon's work that have been preserved form the most extensive religious text on Phoenician mythology known to date. It is a kind of Theogony that includes passages on cosmogony, heroic tales, the life of the gods, and the use of rituals with snakes.[9] There is also an allusion made by Plutarch in regards to a series of sacred scrolls rescued from Carthage and hidden underground, although the veracity of this information has not been confirmed.[4] Conversely, Phoenician religious literature is known to have had a profound influence on the biblical account of Job.[10]

In The Histories by Polybius, he clearly refers to Carthaginian historians, and Sallust claimed to have consulted the Punic books of the Numidian king Hiempsal.[4] Sanchuniathon's historical work, considered the most extensive work produced in Phoenician, was translated into Greek in 2 BC, although only a long fragment has been preserved - one that primarily covers religious themes.[8][9] However, the authenticity of the texts attributed to Sanchuniathon has been questioned several times, without reaching a clear consensus.[7]

There are numerous allusions in Greek literature - until after 3 BC - to a Cosmogony written by Mochus of Sidon in 14 BC. The likely existence of biographies of Hannibal has also been noted. According to Polybius and Titus Livy, Hannibal had such deeds recorded in Phoenician and Greek in 205 BC, in the temple of Hera in Lacinia, and it is probable that he was simply continuing an ancient tradition by which Carthaginian generals used to write down their heroic deeds and give them to a temple to be preserved.[4] Another example of this type of literature is an inscription on the takeover of Agrigentum in 406 BC, of which a small fragment of a text that must have been larger is preserved:[2]

Ruins of the arch built by Trajan in Maktar (Tunisia).

Found fragments of Phoenician poems indicate that rhymed rhetorical prose and poetic narration in iambic rhythms were widely used, among other genres.[2]

A Latin manuscript, the Berne codex 123, suggests Phoenician had 12 parts of speech: the traditional eight (noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction and interjection) plus the article, the impersonal mood, the infinitive and the gerund.[11] In addition, Eusebius of Caesarea attributes the authorship of a treaty titled On the Phoenician Alphabet to Sanchuniathon.[9]

Although the Phoenicians were famous as navigators and explorers, the only two accounts to have survived up to this day are the stories of Hanno the Navigator and Himilco. Hannon's original account seems to be no older than 2 BC, thus raising the question of whether it was made when Carthage was destroyed. Interestingly, Greek and Latin historiography seemed to be completely unaware of this voyage before the fall of the Punic capital.[4]

Himilcon's journey can be traced only to some comments made by Avienius, which he claims come from ancient Punic records he might have accessed. Another hypothesis is that King Juba II based his geographical knowledge of the Nile's origins on Punic books that he kept at his court - as recorded by Amianus Marcellinus - indicating that the river's headwaters were on a mountain in Mauritania.[4]

A similar thing applies to the voyages supposedly carried out by this monarch in the Canary archipelago, an expedition recorded by Pliny. Although it is clear from the way Pliny describes the islands that a real voyager reached this region, discussions are currently underway as to whether this expedition was carried out by Juba II or if he merely collected a series of data he found in the Carthaginian books he inherited from his ancestors.[4] In turn, Marinus of Tyre (born in 1 AD) was considered as the first geographer of his time worthy of the title of "scientist". Although his original work has disappeared, Claudius Ptolemy used it extensively while writing his Geographia.[12]

No direct information is available, but there is evidence that the international treaties Rome signed with Carthage were kept in the Capitol on bronze tablets, and it is to be presumed that the Punics preserved them as well. The treaty signed in 215 BC by Hannibal and Philip V of Macedon is known to have been drafted in Greek and Punic, and alluded to various Carthaginian divinities reminiscent of the treaty signed centuries before by Esarhaddon and the King of Tyre, a fact widely interpreted as a sign of state conservatism that could be explained only through the preservation of these documents over the centuries.[4]