Lecture Access

This lecture will be available to view until 7 December 2026

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OVERVIEW

Watch on Demand | Online Lecture


In 146 BC, after three years of siege, Roman legions breached the walls of Carthage and razed the city to the ground.

 It was a dramatic end for a civilisation that had, for centuries, rivalled Rome itself for mastery of the Mediterranean. Founded by Phoenician settlers from Tyre in the ninth century BC, Carthage rose to become a maritime superpower, its merchant fleets ranging from the Atlantic coast to the Levant, its colonies dotting Sicily, Sardinia, and the Iberian Peninsula. 

Carthaginian society was shaped by its Phoenician heritage yet distinctively its own, with a unique pantheon, an oligarchic system of government, and a culture in which seafaring, commerce, and military enterprise were intertwined. The clash with Rome, fought across three brutal wars and immortalised by the campaigns of Hannibal, would test both powers to their limits before sealing Carthage's fate.

This lecture follows the arc of Carthaginian history from Phoenician foundation to Roman destruction, exploring the city's culture, ambitions, and enduring imprint on the Mediterranean world.


LECTURER

Biography

Eireann is an Honorary Research Associate and Associate Lecturer with The Open University. Raised in the Veneto and educated at Barnard College, Columbia University, and the Universities of Birmingham and Exeter, she brings a rich international perspective to classical civilisation. With extensive experience as a lecturer and tour leader across Italy, Tunisia, Sicily and beyond including Venice, Pompeii and Ravenna – Eireann is bilingual in English and Italian, and combines scholarly rigour with engaging storytelling. Her lectures for Academy Travel invite listeners to explore the ancient world not just as history but as a living dialogue between past and present – bringing monuments, art and ideas vividly to life.

Dr Eireann Marshall

Classicist & Historian