The ruins of CARTHAGE, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is a former city of the Pheonician and Punic periods dating from the 6th Century BC, and are situated 12 km north of Tunis.
This was the base of a powerful empire spanning the entire south Mediterranean and home to a population of the order of half a million people. Its most famous general was Hannibal who famously crossed the Alps to battle the Romans. In 146BC the city finally fell to Rome and its destruction ordered by the Senate. The site was later redeveloped by the Romans and Carthage became the capital of the Roman province of Africa.