Carthage was found­ed in the 9th cen­tu­ry B.C. on the Gulf of Tunis. From the 6th cen­tu­ry onwards, it devel­oped into a great trad­ing empire cov­er­ing much of the Mediter­ranean and was home to a bril­liant civ­i­liza­tion. In the course of the long Punic wars, Carthage occu­pied ter­ri­to­ries belong­ing to Rome, which final­ly destroyed its rival in 146 B.C. A sec­ond — Roman — Carthage was then estab­lished on the ruins of the first.