Located in what is modern-day Tunisia, in northern Africa, Carthage was the capital city of an ancient civilization. Its founding is sometimes ascribed to Queen Alyssa or Dido (a queen who is often alluded to in literary texts). The city was destroyed by the Romans during a 3-day siege in 146 BC and then rebuilt as Roman Carthage, serving as the Roman empire's major African city. It was also sacked and destroyed again in the Battle of Carthage in 698.
In her poem "Eighteen Hundred and Eleven," Barbauld describes the rise and fall of great civilizaitons throughout history in order to support her arugment that Britain's empire is probably next. The Marius reference is likely Gaius Marius, a Roman statesman and general who was exiled to Africa in 88 BC.
The Genius now forsakes the favoured shore,
And hates, capricious, what he loved before;
Then empires fall to dust, then arts decay,
And wasted realms enfeebled despots sway;
Even Nature's changed; without his fostering smile
Ophir no gold, no plenty yields the Nile;
The thirsty sand absorbs the useless rill,
And spotted plagues from putrid fens distill.
In desert solitudes then Tadmor sleeps,
Stern Marius then o'er fallen Carthage weeps; (lines 241-250)
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