The Phoenician culture emerged in the Bronze Age city-states of the Levant, developing prominent innovations such as the first alphabet (from which many present-day writing systems derive). By the early first millennium BC, Phoenician cities had established a vast maritime network of trading posts as far as Iberia, spreading their culture, religion, and language throughout the central and western Mediterranean. By the sixth century BC, Carthage, a Phoenician coastal colony in what is now Tunisia, had risen to dominate this region. These culturally Phoenician communities associated with or ruled by Carthage became known as "Punic" by the Romans. The Carthaginian empire left its mark in history, particularly well-known for the three large-scale " Punic Wars" with the rising Roman Republic
