Thought to have been inspiration for a fabled land visited by Ulysses in Homer’s Odyssey, Tunisia was in reality home of the legendary conqueror, Hannibal. Scarce little is left of ancient Carthage, as the city was called in that age. At one time, however, Carthage was an enormously prosperous town, one that had been originally established by Princess Elissa Dido, a Phoenician who fled Tyre in present-day Lebanon at the early start of 9th century to escape her brother, Pygmalion. With growing trade connections throughout the Mediterranean, in the coming centuries Carthage expanded across sea to encompass the entire North African coast from Egypt to the Atlantic, as well as the Balearic Isles off of Spain, Malta, Sardinia, and parts of Sicily.

However, once a conquering empire, the next a conquered one, and thus like Carthage, Rome too eventually passed into history. And with its fall, a stream of conquerors passed through the city. The Vandals were the first to arrive. Then came the Byzantines, the Arabs, and the Ottomans. Each new occupier took down a bit more of the city walls for use in the construction of other towns. By the 16th, the city had become a village, and by the 19th century there was little left of it at all.

Benefiting as all do whose history is complex and varied, the Tunisians are proud of their past life as Carthagians. The Tunisians further maintain a culture that reveals the influences of all invading forces. The French were the last to arrive and the last to leave. French colonial rule during the 1880s has meant that Tunisia today has some substantial French influences. In 1956, however, after decades of conflict Tunisia liberated itself from French rule, and today is a modern democratic country. Though its two official languages of Tunisia are French and Arabic, the people of Tunisia view themselves as Africans as well as Arabs. Moreover, these days the only invaders passing through are European tourists.