Cartagena was founded about the year 243 B.C. by the Carthaginian Hasdrubal, and was called _Carthago Nova_ or New Carthage, to distinguish it from the African city of Carthage. It was conveniently situated opposite to the Carthaginian territory in Africa, and was early noted for its harbour. Its silver and gold mines were the source of great wealth both to the Carthaginians and to the Romans. In 210 B.C. this important place, the headquarters and treasure city of the Punic army, was stormed and taken with great slaughter by P. Scipio. The city continued to flourish under the Romans, who made it a colony, with the name _Colonia Victrix Julia Nova Carthago_. In A.D. 425 it was pillaged and nearly destroyed by the Goths. Cartagena was a bishopric from about 400 to 1289, when the see was removed to Murcia. Under the Moors it became an independent principality, which was destroyed by Ferdinand II. of Castile in 1243, restored by the Moors, and finally conquered by James I. of Aragon in 1276. It was rebuilt by Philip II. of Spain (1527-1598) for the sake of its harbour. In 1585 it was sacked by an English fleet under Sir Francis Drake. In 1706, in the War of the Spanish Succession, it was occupied by Sir John Leake; and in the next year it was retaken by the duke of Berwick. On the 5th of November 1823 it capitulated to the French. In consequence of the insurrection in Spain, Cartagena was in 1844 again the scene of warfare. On the 23rd of August 1873 it was bombarded by the Spanish fleet under Admiral Lobos; on the 11th of October a battle took place off the town, between the ships of the government and the rebels, and on the 12th of January 1874 Cartagena was occupied by the government troops.
See _Biblioteca histórica de Cartagena_, by G. Vicent y Portillo (Madrid, 1889, &c.); _Fechos y fechas de Cartagena_, by I. Martinez Rito (Cartagena, 1894); and _Serie de los obispos de Cartagena_, by P. Diaz Casson (Madrid, 1895).
CARTAGO, the capital of the province of Cartago, in Costa Rica, Central America; 13 m. E.S.E. of San José by the trans-continental railway. Pop. (1900) 4536. Cartago is built 4930 ft. above sea-level, on the fertile and beautiful plateau of San José, and at the southern base of the volcano Irazú (11,200 ft.). Some of its older buildings, especially the churches, are of considerable interest; but all bear marks of the volcanic disturbances from which the town has suffered on many occasions--notably in 1723, when it was nearly overwhelmed by the bursting of the flooded crater of Irazú, and in 1841, when it was shattered by an earthquake. There are hot mineral springs much frequented by invalids at Bella Vista, a suburb connected with the town by a tramway 3 m. long. The local trade is chiefly in coffee of fine quality, which is readily cultivated in the rich volcanic soil of the neighbourhood. Cartago is said to have been in existence as early as 1522; it was probably named in 1563 by the Spaniard Vazquez de Coronado, to whom its foundation is often ascribed. Though several times plundered by buccaneers, it retained its importance as the capital of Costa Rica until 1823, when it is said by tradition to have contained 30,000 inhabitants. Its prosperity rapidly diminished after the transference of the seat of government to San José, in 1823, but somewhat revived with the development of railways after 1871.