Around 227 BC the Carthaginians founded Qart Hadasht here, the new city, capital of their domain in Hispania. From this harbour ringed by hills, and with the silver of Iberia, marched the army with which Hannibal crossed the Alps, and in 209 BC Scipio took it in a single day by wading across a lagoon. Twelve stops between the natural harbour, the Phoenician ships, the shelter dug into the hill, the castle of the five hills, the theatre of the victors, Hasdrubal's new city, the forum quarter, the palace hill, the Punic wall, the vanished lagoon, the museum of ingots and the silver mines of the sierra. Approximate audio duration: 22 minutes.
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Cartagena púnica: la ciudad de Aníbal que Escipión conquistó en un solo día
Hacia el 227 a.C. los cartagineses fundaron aquí Qart Hadasht, la ciudad nueva, capital de su dominio en Hispania. Desde este puerto rodeado de cerros y la plata de Iberia salió el ejército con el que Aníbal cruzó los Alpes, y en el 209 a.C. Escipión la tomó en un solo día cruzando una laguna. Doce paradas entre el puerto natural, los barcos fenicios, el refugio excavado en el cerro, el castillo de los cinco montes, el teatro de los vencedores, la ciudad nueva de Asdrúbal, el barrio del foro, la colina del palacio, la muralla púnica, la laguna desaparecida, el museo de los lingotes y las minas de plata de la sierra. Duración aproximada de audio: 22 minutos.
Tour stops
12 stops · ~22 min of audio · 16.13 km on foot (~4 h walking) · about 4 h 30 min in total
You are standing on the Muelle de Alfonso XII, facing the harbour of Cartagena. Look around: the water is enclosed by hills, and the mouth of the bay is narrow. This is one of the finest natural harbours in the Mediterranean.
Some two thousand two hundred and fifty years ago, that is exactly what the Carthaginians saw. A sheltered harbour, a peninsula ringed by hills and, inland, mountains full of silver.
Here they founded a city around 227 BC. They called it Qart Hadasht, which in their language means new city. The Romans would later call it Carthago Nova. That is where the name Cartagena c…
2
Before Carthage, the Phoenicians
In front of you is the ARQVA building, Spain's National Museum of Underwater Archaeology. Inside are objects that the sea off this coast preserved for centuries.
To understand Qart Hadasht you have to go a long way back. Carthage, in today's Tunisia, had been founded by Phoenicians from Tyre. Tradition places its founding in 814 BC. The Carthaginians were, at heart, African Phoenicians.
And Phoenicians were already sailing this coast centuries before the new city existed. In the bay of Mazarrón, some thirty kilometres to the west, two Phoenician boats from the seventh century BC came to ligh…
3
A Hill That Still Gives Shelter
You are on Calle Gisbert, in front of an opening cut into the rock. It is the entrance to the Civil War Shelter Museum. Behind that door, the Concepción hill is riddled with tunnels.
This hill is one of those the Carthaginians chose to defend their city. More than two thousand years later, during the Spanish Civil War, it served as a shield once again.
Between 1936 and 1939 Cartagena was the Republic's main naval base. That is why it was bombed from the air again and again. Residents dug shelters into the slopes, and this is one of them.
Inside you will see the tunnels, the benches where pe…
4
The Five Hills of Polybius
You are at the top of the Concepción hill, beside the medieval castle. Lean over the viewpoint. From here you can see at a glance why the Carthaginians settled in this spot.
Polybius, a Greek historian of the second century BC, visited the city and described it carefully. He wrote that it stood on a peninsula, bounded by the sea to the south and by a lagoon to the north.
Only a narrow isthmus joined it to the mainland. And inside the city rose five hills. This one, the highest, is usually identified with what Polybius called the hill of Asclepius, after a temple to that god.
Look north, bey…
5
The Theatre of the Winners
Before you is Cartagena's Roman Theatre, its seating resting against the hillside. Look at the reddish columns of the stage. This theatre lay buried beneath a neighbourhood for centuries and began to come to light in 1988.
The Romans built it in the time of the emperor Augustus, at the end of the first century BC. It is the most visible reminder of who won the war we are about to tell. But this city's story begins with a Carthaginian defeat.
Between 264 and 241 BC, Rome and Carthage fought the First Punic War. They fought over Sicily, and Carthage lost. It had to give up the island and pay R…
6
Hasdrubal and the New City
You are in the Plaza del Ayuntamiento, facing the Roman Theatre Museum. The building is by the architect Rafael Moneo and opened in 2008. Its route takes you beneath the street and an old church before emerging into the theatre.
Now go back to the third century BC. After Hamilcar's death, the new Carthaginian leader in Hispania was Hasdrubal, whom historians call the Fair to tell him apart from other Hasdrubals.
Hasdrubal preferred diplomacy to war. He married an Iberian princess and allied himself with the peoples of the region. And around 227 BC he founded a new capital on this peninsula.
…
7
Hannibal Takes Command
You are in the Roman Forum Quarter, at the foot of the Molinete hill. Beneath the walkways you can see baths, streets and houses of the Roman city. But the ground here was already occupied when the Romans arrived.
In 221 BC Hasdrubal was assassinated. The sources say the killer was a Celtic servant avenging his master's death. The army then chose its new general by acclamation: Hannibal, son of Hamilcar, about twenty-six years old.
Hannibal had grown up in the army camps of Hispania. He married an Iberian woman from Castulo, a mining city on the upper Guadalquivir. And from Qart Hadasht he b…
8
The Palace Hill and the Silver with Elephants
You are at the top of the Molinete hill, in its archaeological park. Look around: the harbour lies to the south, the Concepción hill to the east and, to the north, the plain where the lagoon once was.
Polybius says that on one of the city's hills Hasdrubal had a palace built for himself. Most archaeologists place it here, on the Molinete. That is why it is also known today as Arx Hasdrubalis, the citadel of Hasdrubal.
From this city the wealth of the Barcids was managed. And that wealth was, above all, silver. The mines of Hispania, in the nearby sierra and in the Sierra Morena around Castul…
9
The Wall That Waited for Scipio
You are in front of the Punic Wall Interpretation Centre, on Calle San Diego. Inside survives a stretch of the wall the Carthaginians built between the San José hill and the Monte Sacro. It is one of the few visible remains of Hannibal's city.
Notice how it was built: two parallel stone walls, linked by cross walls that form chambers. Above, it continued in mudbrick. It is a type of casemate wall known in the Punic world. This stretch closed off the isthmus, the only way in by land.
Now go back to 209 BC. Scipio was about twenty-five. His father and his uncle had died fighting in Hispania tw…
10
The Lagoon That Opened in a Day
You are in the Plaza de España, on the edge between the old town and the nineteenth-century extension. Everything you see, streets, squares and buildings, stands on the bed of a lagoon. In antiquity the water reached the foot of the walls on this side.
Scipio had spoken with fishermen from Tarraco who knew this coast. They told him the lagoon was shallow and that, towards evening, the water dropped even further. On this side the Carthaginians were expecting no one.
While the main assault went on at the isthmus, Scipio sent five hundred men with ladders across the lagoon. Polybius says the wa…
11
Forty Thousand Miners for Rome
You are in front of the Enrique Escudero de Castro Municipal Archaeological Museum. The building stands over a Roman-era cemetery, and its galleries hold much of the mining history of the area.
The fall of Qart Hadasht was the beginning of the end for Carthage in Hispania. In 206 BC Scipio won at Ilipa, near Seville, and the Carthaginians lost the peninsula. Four years later, at Zama in Africa, Scipio defeated Hannibal himself.
The new city became Roman. And the mines kept working, now for Rome. Some sixty years after the conquest, Polybius visited them and left an astonishing figure.
Accor…
12
The Mountain of Silver
You are in the Cartagena-La Unión mining range, at the La Unión Mining Park, beside the Agrupa Vicenta mine. Look at the landscape: red, ochre and yellow earth, iron headframes, heaps of slag. It is a mountain hollowed out from the inside.
People were looking for silver and lead in these hills long before the Romans. The Carthaginians knew them well. But the great ancient exploitation came with Rome, in the second and first centuries BC, when thousands of people, many of them enslaved, worked here.
If you go into the mine, you will see modern galleries that in places cut through much older w…
How long does the "Punic Cartagena: Hannibal's City That Scipio Took in a Single Day" audio tour take?
It has about 22 minutes of audio across 12 stops and a 16.13 km walking route (~4 h on foot). Plan roughly 4 h 30 min in total, or split it up: you can pause and resume anytime.
Where does the tour start?
At stop 1, "The Harbour Everyone Wanted" (coordinates 37.5978, -0.984). The app guides you from stop to stop with a map.
Is it free?
Trevurs is a free app for iOS and Android. There is also an optional Premium version, from USD 1.99, with unlimited offline downloads, access to every tour and no ads. It also helps keep an independent app alive.
Why use an audio tour instead of a guided group tour?
No group to keep up with and no guide to wait for. Start at any time of day, on your own schedule. Go at your own pace: pause, rewind or skip any stop. No need to commit 2 or 3 hours to a single tour: do one stop or the whole route. Works offline once downloaded.
What languages is this audio guide available in?
This tour is available in Spanish, English, Portuguese, French, Italian. Switch languages anytime from inside the app.
Do I need wifi to listen to this tour?
No. Download the tour over wifi before you go, then listen without any data connection.
How do I access this tour?
Download Trevurs on iPhone (App Store) or Android (Google Play), then open Cartagena and pick "Punic Cartagena: Hannibal's City That Scipio Took in a Single Day". No account required to start.
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No wifi needed · Spanish, English, Portuguese, French, Italian
