In the same bay with Utica, further to the south, and near its inner recess, was founded, nearly three centuries after Utica, the most important of all the Phoenician colonies, Carthage.  The advantages of the locality are indicated by the fact that the chief town of Northern Africa, Tunis, has grown up within a short distance of the site.  It combined the excellences of a sheltered situation, a good soil, defensible eminences, and harbours which a little art made all that was to be desired in ancient times and with ancient navies.  These basins, partly natural, partly artificial, still exist;[591] but their communication with the sea is blocked up, as also is the channel which connected the military harbour with the harbours of commerce.  The remains of the ancient town are mostly beneath the surface of the soil, but modern research has uncovered a portion of them, and brought to light a certain number of ruins which belong probably to the very earliest period.  Among these are walls in the style called “Cyclopian,” built of a very hard material, and more than thirty-two feet thick, which seem to have surrounded the ancient Byrsa or citadel, and which are still in places sixteen feet high.[592] The Roman walls found emplaced above these are of far inferior strength and solidity.  An extensive necropolis lies north of the ancient town, on the coast near Cape Camart.

Another early and important Phoenician settlement in these parts was Hadrumetum or Adrymes,[593] which seems to be represented by the modern Sousa.  Hadrumetum lay on the eastern side of the great Tunisian projection, near the southern extremity of a large bay which looks to the east, and is now known as the Gulf of Hammamet.  Its position was upon the coast at the edge of the vast plain called at present the “Sahel of Sousa,” which is sandy, but immensely productive of olive oil.  “Millions of olive-trees,” it is said, “cover the tract,"[594] and the present annual exportation amounts to 40,000 hectolitres.[595] Ancient remains are few, but the Cothon, or circular harbour, may still be traced, and in the necropolis, which almost wholly encircles the town, many sepulchral chambers have been found, excavated in the chalk, closely resembling in their arrangements those of the Phoenician mainland.

South of Hadrumetum, at no great distance, was Leptis Minor, now Lemta.  The gulf of Hammamet terminates southwards in the promontory of Monastir, between which and Ras Dimas is a shallow bay looking to the north-east.  Here was the Lesser Leptis, so called to distinguish it from the larger city of the same name between the Lesser and the Greater Syrtis; it was, however, a considerable town, as appears from its remains.  These lie along the coast for two miles and a half in Lat. 35º 43’, and include the ruins of an aqueduct, of a theatre, of quays, and of jetties.[596] The neighbourhood is suited for the cultivation of the olive.