My own self

For Romans, treachery was one of the marks of a Carthaginian. Punic 'good faith', Punica Fides, meant the opposite. Also, they were cruel and superstitious. These traits came together in ttheir human sacrifices, above all of their own children. Carthage was feminized. Carthaginian women were dangerous seducers, like the mythical Queen Dido. Carthaginian men were effeminate, wearing loose unbelted clothes, and lacked control of their sexual appetites. Getting others to do their fighting for them showed their cowardice. In Roman eyes, this could be explained by their living in Africa. It was considered that the hot sun meant that Africans had little blood in their bodies, and so, fearing to lose what little they did have, they were scared of wounds, and thus were cowards. A final 'proof' of their barbarity, their otherness, was that they were believed to eat dogs.

The negative ethnographic image of Carthaginians was constructed partly out of reality (they did sacrifice some of their children), and partly out of fantasy (they almost certainly did not eat dogs).