1.11 Africa: 300 to 201 b.c.  (Page 2/2)

The Alexandria library was more permanent. Included in the tremendous collection of some 700,000 volumes

Toward the end of the century radical decay set in, with bureaucratic corruption and slackness. As the century ended the aggressive Syrian king, Antiochus III, defeated the child Ptolemy V and took the Mediterranean coastal possessions of Palestine, Phoenicia and Asia Minor away from the Egyptian Dynasty. There is some indication that bubonic plague, or something very similar, made its first appearance in Egypt and adjacent Libya in this century and then disappeared again for another 800 years. (Ref. 140 )

North central and northwest africa

Carthage was now the richest of the Mediterranean cities, trading in slaves, Egyptian linen, ivory, animal skins, Greek pottery and wine, iron from Elba, copper from Cyprus, silver from Spain, tin from Britain and incense from Arabia. Some Carthaginian planters occupying fertile land in Libya may have had as many as 20,000 slaves. (Ref. 222 ) In 261 B.C. Carthage supposedly had 1,500 ships with approximately 150,000 crewmen. This is to be compared with the famous Spanish Armada of A.D. 1588 when Spain had 120 ships and 27,000 crew-men, Carthage soon reduced Numidia to a series of vassal states and became the capital of a Semitic empire which spread all along north Africa as well as in the islands of the Mediterranean and in Spain. Although the level of civilization was high in most respects, some of their customs were barbaric, such as sacrificing living children to certain male and female gods. The details of Carthage's great struggles with Rome will be given in later sections under ITALY and SPAIN. It will suffice to say at this time that at the end of the First Punic War a local revolution broke out in Carthage which raged for forty months. And still Carthage bounced back to fight the greater Second Punic War with Rome. At the end of this second conflict, when Hannibal was defeated by Scipio at the gates of the city, it was the beginning of the end of this great city-state, although it struggled on until the middle of the next century. (Ref. 48 , 66 )

It is somewhat difficult for us today to grasp the magnitude of the Punic Wars. The First was marked by some of the greatest sea battles in history. Consider the following, as collected from ancient historians by Fell (Ref. 66 ):

Each Carthaginian ship had a crew of at least 250 rowers, with 120 more officers and marines. The losses of men in these great sea battles must have been staggering.

Another interesting fact about Carthage at this period is that their coins changed from silver to gold, but with just a small amount of gold - the amalgam called "electrum" - at about 300 B.C. The design also changed to depict the native Carthaginian goddess, Tanith, spouse of Bel. Based on findings since 1976 of alleged Carthaginian coins of this period found in various north American sites, Fell (Ref. 66 ) believes that the source of the Carthaginian gold was America, obtained from Amerindians in bartering with bronze manufactures of the Cypriot Phoenicians. Such bronze works are now held in storage rooms in Cuenca, Brazil, collected by Professor Paul Cheeseman. This region was a former Inca northern capital, noted for burial hoards and underground valuables. Fell also believes that these same North African mariners traded with North American Algonquin tribes for timber which they used for ships. After the terrible naval defeats by Rome and the absence of a navy, trade with America was no longer profitable or even possible.

Subsaharan africa

In northern Nigeria the so-called Nok Culture has been identified with terra-cotta figurines, and evidence of iron slag and tin-mining, dated by radio-carbon technique to about 300 B.C. Along the high cliffs of Bandiagara on the edge of the Hombori Mountains near the bend of the Niger River in Mali, the Toloy people built granaries of mud coils and stored them in giant caves in the cliffs, while their villages were probably on the plains below. (Ref. 251 ) Along the Congo River there were Stone Age gathers and fishermen about 270 B.C. In the east and south there was a continued take-over by the Sudanese Negroes who were now called Bantu, after their language. (Ref. 45 , 8 )

Forward to Africa: 200 to 101 B.C.

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