ABSTRACT
This chapter, covering ancient history, focuses on those aspects of Tunisia's history that continue to have an impact on contemporary Tunisia—from the ruins of Phoenician Carthage through Roman artefacts and olive trees to Arab architecture and urbanism. It examines Tunisia's struggle for independence from French colonisation, a struggle that has defined modern Tunisia. The area known as Tunisia was sparsely inhabited by Berbers when the Phoenicians first landed in the 12th century BC. An earlier alliance with Rome was shattered, and three Punic Wars were fought between the Romans and Carthaginian Phoenicians between 250 BC and 150 BC. They are the heroic adventures of the Carthaginian general Hannibal, and culminating in the sacking of Carthage in 146 BC, which effectively brought to an end the Carthaginian Empire. Although French colonisation in Tunisia is officially recorded as beginning in 1881, it was the fall of Kairouan to French troops in October 1882 that really marked the end of Arab rule.
