Roman Carthage was an important city in ancient Rome, located in modern-day Tunisia. Approximately 100 years after the destruction of Punic Carthage in 146 BC, a new city of the same name (Latin Carthāgō) was built on the same land by the Romans in the period from 49 to 44 BC. By the 3rd century, Carthage had developed into one of the largest cities of the Roman Empire, with a population of several hundred thousand. It was the center of the Roman province of Africa, which was a major breadbasket of the empire. Carthage briefly became the capital of a usurper, Domitius Alexander, in 308–311. Conquered by the Vandals in 439, Carthage served as the capital of the Vandal Kingdom for a century. Re-conquered by the Eastern Roman Empire in 533–534, it continued to serve as an Eastern Roman regional center, as the seat of the praetorian prefecture of Africa (after 590 the Exarchate of Africa).

The city was sacked and destroyed by Umayyad Arab forces after the Battle of Carthage in 698 to prevent it from being reconquered by the Byzantine Empire. A fortress on the site was garrisoned by Muslim forces until the Hafsid period, when it was captured by Crusaders during the Eighth Crusade. After the withdrawal of the Crusaders, the Hafsids decided to destroy the fortress to prevent any future use by a hostile power. Roman Carthage was used as a source of building materials for Kairouan and Tunis in the 8th century.

After the Roman conquest of Carthage, its nearby rival Utica, a Roman ally, was made capital of the region and for a while replaced Carthage as the leading centre of Punic trade and leadership. It had the advantageous position of being situated on the outlet of the Medjerda River, Tunisia's only river that flowed all year long. However, grain cultivation in the Tunisian mountains caused large amounts of silt to erode into the river. This silt accumulated in the harbour until it became useless, and so Rome looked for a new harbour town.

By 122 BC, Gaius Gracchus had founded a short-lived Roman colony, called Colonia Junonia. The purpose was to obtain arable lands for impoverished farmers. The Senate abolished the colony some time later, to undermine Gracchus' power.

After this failed effort, Carthage was rebuilt by Julius Caesar in the period from 49 to 44 BC, with the official name Colonia Iulia Concordia Carthago. By the first century, it had grown to be the second-largest city in the western half of the Roman Empire. The geographer Strabo wrote that when the third Punic War began in 149 BC, the Carthaginians ruled 300 cities in Libya and 700,000 people lived in Carthage. Dexter Hoyos writes that it was physically impossible in any period of its history for that many people to live within its walls. According to Hoyos, the population of Roman Carthage and its surrounding territory would have been around 575,000 in AD 149. It was the centre of the Roman province of Africa, which was a major breadbasket of the empire. Among its major monuments was an amphitheatre. The temple of Juno Caelestis, dedicated to the City Protector Goddess Juno Caelestis, was one of the biggest building monuments of Carthage, and became a holy site for pilgrims from all Northern Africa and Spain.

Carthage became a centre of early Christianity. In the first of a string of rather poorly reported councils at Carthage a few years later, 70 bishops attended. Tertullian later broke with the mainstream that was increasingly represented in the West by the primacy of the Bishop of Rome, but a more serious rift among Christians was the Donatist controversy, against which Augustine of Hippo spent much time and parchment arguing. At the Council of Carthage (397), the biblical canon for the western Church was confirmed. The Christians at Carthage conducted persecutions against the pagans, during which the pagan temples, including the Temple of Juno Caelesti, were destroyed.

The great fire of the second century, which swept through the capital of the governor of the province, made it possible to develop a hilly area of the city as part of an important urban planning project. A vast district of luxurious dwellings, including the "Villa de la volière", was built on this occasion. A circular monument, which was excavated during the UNESCO campaign, called "rotonde sur podium carré", is sometimes dated to the Christian period and identified by some researchers as a mausoleum. A huge inscription to Aesculapius was found nearby, which suggests that the Punic temple of Eshmun was located on this site. Texts indicate that the Romans built the temple to the corresponding deity of their pantheon on the same site. The last fundamental element of the building program is a large leisure area, with a theatre dating from the second century and an odeon built in the third century. According to Victor de Vita, the whole area was destroyed by the Vandals. However, a remaining population lived there and a settlement persisted in the ruins.

The Vandals under Gaiseric landed at the Roman province of Africa in 429, either at the request of Bonifacius, a Roman general and the governor of the Diocese of Africa, or as migrants in search of safety. They subsequently fought against the Roman forces there and by 435^{[citation needed]} had defeated the Roman forces in Africa and established the Vandal Kingdom. As an Arian, Gaiseric was considered a heretic by the Catholic Christians, but a promise of religious toleration might have caused the city's population to accept him.