Western Civilization I / Unit 18 WC1 1708 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Sample Question One: Phoenician Cities
The idea
The first sample question asks which pair of cities were Phoenician cities or colonies, and offers Alexandria and Cairo, Tyre and Carthage, Corinth and Chersonesos, Messina and Rhegium, Syracuse and Naples. The method is to test each pair against one fact: the Phoenicians were the cities of present-day Lebanon and the colonies they planted across the Mediterranean, Carthage the greatest.
In practice
Eliminate. Alexandria was founded by Alexander and Cairo grew from a Muslim garrison town, so the first pair is Greek and Arab. Corinth is a Greek polis and Chersonesos a Greek colony on the Black Sea. Messina and Rhegium are Greek colonies on the strait of Sicily. Syracuse and Naples are Greek colonies too, Syracuse the one Athens attacked in four fifteen. That leaves Tyre, the chief Phoenician city, and Carthage, its colony that fought Rome. The answer is Tyre and Carthage, and unit 02's entry says Tyre came from the witness, since the anchor names Carthage alone.
Where people slip
The distractors are all Greek, which is the trap: the exam tests whether you can tell Phoenician colonization from Greek colonization, both coastal, both Mediterranean, a century apart. Learn the pair, and learn that Carthage is Phoenician even though it fought Rome as a Hellenistic-era power.
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