- Carthage was polytheistic and worshiped a pantheon like Rome and Greece. Also like Rome and Greece they were pretty syncretic. They were perfectly happy to adopt and adapt other people’s gods when they wanted to. The primary god of Carthage was Baal-Hammon (lord of altars of incense). Baal is a confusing name because it translates to “lord,” so there’s real argument as to whether Baal-Hammon is the same Baal (El) of Sidon (the Baal of the Bible). It also seems like a quarter of Phoenician gods carry Baal as part of their names (like Baal Iddir, Baal Marqod, Baal Oz, Baal Qarnem, Baal Sapon, and Baal Shamin), which further confuses the issue. As locals may call any of them simply Baal, making it hard to know which Baal anyone was talking about. So it can be hard to decode if Baal-Hammon really should be associated with El, it’s not even certain if the Carthaginians themselves knew or even cared. The Romans sometimes equated Baal-Hammon to their Saturn. In Carthage Baal-Hammon received human boy babies among his sacrifices. The Romans loved to slam the Carthaginians for participating in human sacrifices. So for a long time this was believed to be simply a Roman slur against their greatest enemies. But archeologists have since found a site of urns with charred animal bones mixed with urns containing charred remains of human infants, largely corroborating the Roman accounts. So it’s now generally accepted that the Carthaginians did sacrifice their children. This is probably the most salacious fact of Carthaginian religion to modern readers. Aside from Baal-Hammon the next most important god may have been Melqart. He was a deity of strength sometimes identified as a Heracles equivalent. He was also connected to the sea, seafaring, and trade. Hisorically he was also important as the patron of the Barca family. When Hannibal swore to destroy Rome, Melqart was the god he swore to. Tanit filled out the triad of important deities. She was Baal-Hammon’s consort, and her symbol is all over everything in Carthage. She was the mother goddess, source of all life, etc. On a street level she may have been the most important deity to the common Carthaginian. There are several dozen other named deities: Eshmun (a god of beauty, love, and healing sometimes associated with Adonis or Æsclepius), Reshef (associated with fire and lightening), Hawot (the dead), Kothar (arts, crafts, and engineering), Rasap (war), another Reshef (who was also a god of war… or maybe simply an alternative name for Rasap… or maybe a blending of Reshef and Rasap), and so forth. They also worshiped plenty of import deities. The Egyptian goddess Isis for example had a large temple in Carthage and was apparently popular.
- A typical source for the practice is this bit from Plutarch’s De superstitione
- but with full knowledge and understanding they themselves offered up their own children, and those who had no children would buy little ones from poor people and cut their throats as if they were so many lambs or young birds; meanwhile the mother stood by without a tear or moan; but should she utter a single moan or let fall a single tear, she had to forfeit the money, and her child was sacrificed nevertheless; and the whole area before the statue was filled with a loud noise of flutes and drums took the cries of wailing should not reach the ears of the people.