Over 2,500 years of history of a harbour
Mastia · Qart Hadasht · Carthago Nova · Qartayannat al-Halfa · Cartagena
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6th–3rd centuries BC
Its name: Mastia (or Mastia Tarseion)
On the south-east coast, sheltered by a natural harbour almost enclosed by hills, there stood an Iberian–Tartessian settlement that Greek and Roman sources call Mastia (or Mastia Tarseion). The metals of the nearby sierra and trade with Phoenicians and Greeks made it a useful outpost.
The historian Polybius cites “Mastia of the Tarseians” in the treaties between Rome and Carthage as a limit the Romans were not to cross for sailing or trade.
227–209 BC
Its name: Qart Hadasht «New City»
The Carthaginian general Hasdrubal the Fair founds “New City” — that is what Qart Hadasht means — as the capital of Carthaginian rule in Iberia, on the site of the older settlement. He chooses a sheltered harbour, close to the sierra’s silver, and has a palace built for himself.
After Hasdrubal’s assassination, command passes to Hannibal Barca, who from Qart Hadasht prepares the campaign that would take him to Saguntum and, in 218 BC, across the Alps with elephants: the Second Punic War. His army mixed Carthaginian and Libyan contingents with allies and mercenaries: Numidian horsemen, Balearic slingers and Iberian infantry recruited on the peninsula. According to the sources, he left from here with some 90,000 infantry, 12,000 cavalry and 37 elephants (figures debated).
Publius Cornelius Scipio, with some 27,000 men according to the sources, attacks by land and sea. According to Polybius and Livy, he used the low water of the lagoon that protected one side of the city to enter with his soldiers. He seizes the booty, stores, weapons and Iberian hostages, and the city passes to Rome. Mago Barca, who commanded the Carthaginian garrison (about 1,000 men, according to Polybius), held out in the citadel and finally surrendered; Scipio sent him as a prisoner to Rome. According to Livy, the centurion Quintus Trebellius and the marine Sextus Digitius disputed who had been first onto the wall, and Scipio awarded both the mural crown. Among the hostages of the Iberian tribes were relatives of chiefs such as Indibilis and Mandonius, of the Ilergetes, and Edeco, of the Edetani; Scipio returned them without ransom and thereby won many allies.
209 BC – 5th century AD
Its name: Carthago Nova «New Carthage»
Under the name Carthago Nova the city becomes the great Roman harbour of the south-east: silver and lead mines, salted fish and garum, and esparto from the so-called Campus Spartarius.
It is raised to a Roman colony — tradition links this to Julius Caesar — with a forum, colonnaded streets and public buildings.
It is built on the slope of Concepción hill, seating about 6,000 spectators and linked to Augustus’s family. Over time it was buried under houses and a bullring.
Districts with rich houses with mosaics and paintings, baths, and a forum with colonnades.
The city suffers a Vandal sack amid the collapse of the Western Roman Empire.
6th–7th centuries
Its name: Carthago Nova
Under Emperor Justinian the Byzantine Empire recovers stretches of southern Hispania and creates the province of Spania. Cartagena becomes one of its capitals and is walled.
The Visigothic king Suintila drives the Byzantines from Hispania. The city is left badly damaged.
8th–15th centuries
Its name: Qartayannat al-Halfa «Cartagena of the esparto»
After the Muslim conquest of the early 8th century the city joins Al-Andalus. It is a lesser but relevant harbour, under the taifa of Murcia.
Prince Alfonso (the future Alfonso X the Wise) brings the city into the kingdom of Castile. Alfonso X makes it a strategic Mediterranean harbour, grants privileges, and fosters a new settlement and the episcopal see.
Alfonso X grants Cartagena the charter of Córdoba (1246), restores its episcopal see (1250) and assigns it its municipal territory (1254): the city becomes a harbour and the head of a district again.
It is once again a port of embarkation and trade, with fishing, salt and esparto, and is defended by castles on the hilltops.
In 1492, after the expulsion decree, Cartagena’s harbour is one of the gates through which the Jews expelled from Spain leave the country.
16th–18th centuries
Its name: Cartagena
The Habsburg monarchy fortifies the harbour and protects the Mediterranean fleet against Barbary corsairs and rival powers.
The conquistador Pedro de Heredia founds on the Caribbean coast a city he names Cartagena de Indias in honour of the Spanish one.
In 1610, with the expulsion of the Moriscos, the harbour is once more a gate of departure for the expelled population.
Cartagena is a base of Spain’s galleys; in the 18th century the Maritime Department and the Arsenal will follow.
Philip V makes Cartagena capital of the Mediterranean Maritime Department, the country’s most important naval base on this coast.
In the 18th century, under Ferdinand VI and Charles III, the military Arsenal is built — a monumental work of the Enlightenment — along with the Naval Hospital, the Artillery Park, Charles III’s walls and the dock. The Sea Wall, which defended the waterfront, was completed in 1781.
19th–20th centuries
Its name: Cartagena
At the end of 1870, Amadeo of Savoy, elected King of Spain, lands at Cartagena.
During the First Spanish Republic, Cartagena rises and proclaims the Canton: an independent federal republic that holds out for six months of siege, with its own currency, before surrendering in January 1874.
The Cartagena-born naval officer and scientist Isaac Peral invents the electric submarine. It is launched in Cádiz on 8 September 1888; today it can be seen in Cartagena.
Profits from the sierra’s mining finance a new bourgeois city with Modernista buildings. Aguirre Palace, Casa Llagostera, Gran Hotel, Casino.
In April 1931, after the proclamation of the Second Republic, Alfonso XIII leaves Spain, embarking at Cartagena.
A Republican naval base, it was bombed dozens of times. Residents took shelter in galleries dug under the city.
From 1980 to today
Its name: Cartagena
A find that changes the city’s course: the past is once again seen as a cultural and tourist resource.
The festival is born that revives the Punic Wars with camps, parades and historical re-enactments.
The Roman Theatre Museum and the National Museum of Underwater Archaeology (ARQVA) open — a reference for submerged heritage.
More than 2,500 years later it is still a major harbour, a naval base, a university city and a cultural destination. “Mastia, Qart Hadasht, Carthago Nova, Cartagena: four names for the same harbour.”
