Carthage was a great city in antiquity, on the northern coast of Africa, close to present-day Tunisia. Dido was the legendary founding queen of Carthage, created by the Phoenicians, probably in the late 9th century BC, as a trading post. The oldest objects found by archaeologists date back to 800 BC. The city was called by its Punic or Phoenician inhabitants.
Built on a peninsula that juts out over the Gulf of Tunis, Carthage had two ports connected by a canal. Above the harbors, on a hill, was Byrsa, a walled fortress.
In the late 19th and 20th centuries, archaeological activity in the region of ancient Carthage revealed Punic objects and Roman, Byzantine and Vandal buildings that include some of the most beautiful and best-preserved mosaics from the 3rd and 4th centuries AD. Today Carthage is a thriving region of Tunisia.
The origins of feudalism date back to the 3rd century, when the slave system of production in the Roman Empire went into crisis. Faced with the economic crisis and the Germanic invasions, many of the great Roman lords abandoned the cities and went to live on their properties in the countryside. Thes