ABSTRACT
The rich élite who ran Carthage’s affairs were pretty certainly not just a merchant oligarchy but a more complex blend. Merchants of course bought property, in Carthage and outside, with some of their pro ts: this was a reliably safe investment. Meanwhile some wealthy Carthaginians no doubt held most of their wealth in land, and their opportunities for acquiring more land would grow as the city’s control over Libya did. Mago the agronomist’s command, to sell your town house if you wished to be a serious estate owner, implies that such people did exist. It need not be doubted, all the same, that they would often invest in trading ventures.
