The treaties with Rome show how Carthage was able to strongarm the Romans with their superior navy by restricting the Romans’ access to trade. It also stipulates that settlements, raided by the Carthaginians in the amphibious operations of their navy to gain slaves, would then fall under Roman control. Carthage’s raids of Italy played a role in helping the Roman expansion across Italy. While trade was a honourable business, it was profitable if it used few people to share the profit. Piracy by contrast, which was raiding coastal settlements for slaves and loot profited from hiring as many fighters as possible to raid ever larger, richer and better protected settlements. This occupation could be less picky and make use of mercenaries and many Carthaginians and other Phoenicians or North Africans. It’s probable that many Carthaginians participated in piracy, either rowing the ships and learning skill at arms, or as armed raiders. This aided the expansion of the realm that preferred to make a treaty with Carthage according to the conditions they dictated. Unlike the later Barbary pirates of the same region, the Carthaginians were able to turn these exploits into an empire, the Carthaginian epicracy.

Piracy needs a market to translate loot and slaves into commodities the pirates prefer to improve their lives. Carthage with her bustling trade and many traders was such a port of exchange and Carthaginians might have alternated between raiding and trading throughout the Mediterranean, not unlike the later Vikings mostly in more northern waters.

But why did Carthage restrict Roman trade? “Empire Without A Voice Phoenician Iron Metallurgy and Imperial Strategy at Carthage” by Brett Kaufman points out that Carthage was founded as a major iron production sites during the Neo-Assyrian Empire and was part of the Assyrians’ vast trade network that supplied an army with metal that controlled the oldest civilized lands on earth and much of the human population. Carthage lacked iron ore and acquired fuel with difficulty, using olive kernels. This the Carthaginians turned into a feature, the control of the sea enabled them to ship in iron ore, turn it into implements that greatly increased agricultural output, the occupation of 90% of the population, while having a near monopoly on metal tools. Smiths or owners of such workshops are part of the elite of the city magistrates in her early days. They would continue to earn well by supplying this corner of North Africa and West Asia with metal tools and weapons and were incentivized to finance a navy that would continue to establish trade restrictions to protect their business. With Carthage’s rise as an empire copper, tin, and silver were added to the iron smelting of the city. This navy, that protected the metalworkers’ monopoly early on, improved their finances through raids which led to an empire and an abundance of slaves. These slaves could be used in vast numbers, needing constant replacement, to mine the various ores that were smelted in Carthage.

Carthage itself was a wealthy city and while slavery was generally around 10% in the wider region around the Mediterranean, economic centers such as Carthage, Athens, or Rome could reach higher numbers, of about one third of the inhabitants. A family without a slave wouldn’t be considered middle class. Becoming a pirate was a ticket to become middle class, by turning an unsuspecting Italian, or other coastal inhabitant, into a slave. Slavery wasn’t just economic, but also sexual exploitation. In terms of economy, it has been shown that free labour creates greater profits, but slaves were a status symbol and the more slaves performed the more specialized tasks with limited utility, the more wealth one could show off. There might have been a time limited more or less voluntary bondage similar to slavery in Carthage, so not all slaves were created equal. Race played no role in slavery, blacks might have had a higher value, because they were an exotic good that was harder to obtain through the vast Sahara desert.