Punic religion

The Punic religion, Carthaginian religion, or Western Phoenician religion in the western Mediterranean was a direct continuation of the Phoenician variety of the polytheistic ancient Canaanite religion. However, significant local differences developed over the centuries following the foundation of Carthage and other Punic communities elsewhere in North Africa, southern Spain, Sardinia, western Sicily, and Malta from the ninth century BC onward. After the conquest of these regions by the Roman Republic in the third and second centuries BC, Punic religious practices continued, surviving until the fourth century AD in some cases.

In fiction

 * The Gods are not of Rome or Italy: They dwell in earth's abyss or with the stars, Their shrines are where we bring heroic hearts: Yet there are spots which to the minds of men Seem set apart for converse with the Gods. On temples by the sea our fancy roams To Hercules the Roamer: on high hills Astarte pours her radiance: Tanais bends Her bow in tempests, and the thunder hails Chrysaor's sword-flash. On this sultry marge Of nether night and Hades, let us bow Before the Powers of Silence, Death and Dreams; Of that chaotic Air that, o'er the deep Long brooding, brought forth lightnings in the sky; And of the Fires pent up, ere Æon rose, Parent of all our world, nor first nor last.
 * John Nichol, Hannibal (1873), III, vii