A majestic, gloomy and mighty city, the formidable lord of the seas, the focus of the bloody cult of Moloch - this is Carthage in the popular opinion of modern man, in novels and films. How justified is this image? The author of this book on extensive historical and archaeological material recreates a different, but no less impressive picture of a truly great culture, undeservedly forgotten, actually destroyed by Rome. The dead literature of Carthage, which may have kept the keys to the riddles of Atlantis, appears to the reader as an unsolved secret of centuries. And Moloch's religion turns out to be not so sinister...