Carthage is, in many ways, a mirror of Rome. Carthage was founded as a Phoenician Colony around 800 BCE; Rome was founded fewer than 50 years later. As a result of this slight delay, the Carthaginians had a small head start on the Romans, and the fact that theirs was a naval empire while Rome was a land empire gave them a still greater advantage. But, Carthage's greatest advantage was that it was a Phoenician colony trying to unify other Phoenician colonies, with whom they shared a common language and culture. By contrast, the Romans were invaders forced to fight against dozens of independent peoples who all spoke different languages.
Rome and Carthage were very similar, but very different at the same time.