They knew the fertility of the Tunisian projection, the excellence of its harbours, and the prolificness of the large island that lay directly opposite.

Here were the tracts where they might expand freely, and which would richly repay their occupation of them.

It was before the beginning of the eleventh century B.C .-- perhaps some centuries before--that the colonisation of North Africa by the Phoenicians was taken in hand:[581] and about the same time, in all probability, the capes and isles about Sicily were occupied,[582] and Phoenician influence in a little time extended over the entire island.
In North Africa the first colony planted is said to have been Utica.
Utica was situated a little to the west of Carthage, at the mouth of the Mejerda or Bagradas river.[583] It stood on a rocky promontory which ran out into the sea eastward, and partially protected its harbour.

At the opposite extremity, towards the north, ran out another promontory, the modern Ras Sidi Ali-el-Mekki, while the mouth of the harbour, which faced to the south-east, was protected by some islands.

At present the deposits of the Mejerda have blocked up almost the whole of this ancient port, and the rocky eminence upon which the city stood looks down on three sides upon a broad alluvial plain, through which the Mejerda pursues a tortuous course to the sea.[584] The remains of the ancient town, which occupy the promontory and a peninsula projecting from it, include a necropolis, an amphitheatre, a theatre, a castle, the ruins of a temple, and some remains of baths; but they have nothing about them bearing any of the characteristics of Phoenician architecture, and belong wholly to the Roman or post-Roman period.