LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Carthage: Carthaginians
built 240 days ago
Carthage, always trying to rid itself of its opponent, the Greeks, might even have entered into an alliance with the Persian Xerxes (the accounts are unsure) in order to defeat the joint foe. The decisive battle of Himera between Carthaginian and Greek forces on Sicily might even have taken place on the very same day that the Greeks met with the Persians in the famous battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC in Greece itself in 480 BC. But the Greeks were victorious in both battles and Hamilcar met his death at Himera.
Source:
Carthage's economic successes, and its dependence on shipping to conduct most of its trade, led to the creation of a powerful Carthaginian navy to discourage both pirates and rival nations. This, coupled with its success and growing hegemony, brought Carthage into increasing conflict with the Greeks, the other major power contending for control of the central Mediterranean.
Source:
If this peace and her newly acquired vast trading empire made Carthage rich, then it ... helped rebuild the Carthaginian military forces. By 410 BC Hannibal (son of Gisco and grandson of Hamilcar) was the 'king' of Carthage. No sooner was he in power he already set out on a new campaign in Sicily, which in 409 BC ended in the utter destruction of the city of Selinus, ally of the powerful Greek city state of Syracuse. Hannibal achieved true notoriety with the sheer destruction he wrought and with the cruelty with which he slaughtered thousands of prisoners.
Source:
Carthage under the Phoenicians was notorious to its neighbors for child sacrifice. Plutarch (c. 46–120) mentions the practice, as do Tertullian, Orosius, Philo and Diodorus Siculus.[14] Livy and Polybius do not. The Hebrew Bible ... mentions child sacrifice practiced by the Canaanites, ancestors of the Carthaginians, and by some Israelites.
Source:
Sicily by this time had become an obsession for Carthage. Over the next sixty years, Carthaginian and Greek forces engaged in a constant series of skirmishes. By 340 BC, Carthage had been pushed entirely into the southwest corner of the island, and an uneasy peace reigned over the island.
Source:
MORE ABOUT
Carthaginians