Phoenician–Punic literature
), coins, fragments of Sanchuniathon's History and Mago's Treaty, the Greek translation of the voyage of Hanno the Navigator and a few lines in the Poenulus by Plautus.
[3] However, it is a proven fact that both Phoenicia and Carthage had extensive libraries and that Phoenicians had a rich literary production inherited from their Canaanite past, of which works by Philo of Byblos and Menander of Ephesus are only a small part.
[4] Greco-Roman sources mention a number of Punic books saved from the looting and burning of Carthage by the legions of Scipio Africanus in the spring of 146 BC.
[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.
[2] Badnim garasth is on, mysyrthim, bal serm ra; sab siben Mycne, is ab syth sath syby; in aab sa[l]e(m) lo sal: «un ath ab[dach]a!» From Adnim I brought forth the wicked fellow, from the Sirthis, to him, of ill fame; (when) our army surrounded Micne, then I made that enemy [my] captive; The enemy asked mercy for himself: "Spare your slave!"
A Latin manuscript, the Berne codex 123, suggests Phoenician had 12 parts of speech: noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection, article, impersonal mood, infinitive and the gerund.
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.
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.
[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.
[13] With the rise of Carthage in the 5th century BC, Phoenician became a prestigious language in the Mediterranean, competing with Latin and Greek, which led to these translation efforts.
