Project

Enough to feed an army. Carthaginian rural exploitation during the late third century B

Acronym
ETFA
Code
41J08915
Duration
31 August 2015 → 31 August 2017
Funding
European funding: framework programme
Research disciplines
  • Humanities
    • Ancient history
Keywords
exploration
 
Project description

Between 237 and 202 BC, the Carthaginian Empire due to both its territorial ambitions and, above all, its conflicts

with Rome and several indigenous peoples of the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa, was forced to keep large

numbers of troops permanently mobilized. This military-political circumstance led to a series of major changes in

many areas of the Carthaginian economic, political and social system. Through this project we will analyze in detail

the extent to which the military mobilization affected agriculture, the very basis of the ancient economy, and the

related politics adopted by the ruling elites of the Carthaginian Empire. This project, therefore, includes a

quantitative study of the productive capacity of the Carthaginian empire in the late third century BC; an analysis

of the logistics during the Second Punic War (218-201 BC); an appreciation of the relationship of war veterans

with agricultural production and a comparison of these results with those obtained in a specific casus: a survey of

part of the territory of Utica, a North-African city under Carthaginian rule.