Iirc the Carthaginian identity, culture, city etc was destroyed and as a distinct people they ceased to exist

/u/Iphikrates has put together some very interesting arguments about genocide in the ancient world and its applicability to ancient contexts. I'll let him interject if he so wishes, he understands his arguments better than I do. I'm only here to point out that the bit that I quoted is not really true. The Punic language, Punic culture, and the Punic identity persisted well into late antiquity, both in Punic Africa and parts of Iberia, where we even see native Iberian elements mixing with Punic (in, for example, names) which then mix with Roman stuff as locals start to adopt Roman customs. The specific city of Carthage suffered total devastation, though it was soon rebuilt (as a Roman city, but not one without a certain Punic character). Nevertheless, Carthage was far from the only Punic city in Africa, to say nothing of Iberia. Most notably, Utica defected to the Romans and was made the capital of the new African province as a reward. In 36 Octavian even granted them Roman citizenship. Leptis Magna was a Carthaginian tributary originally, and in 111 was made a friend and ally to the Roman people as a result of the joint action against Massinissa. Leptis Minor defected to the Romans and was exempt from the lex agraria that confiscated former Carthaginian lands. Hippo escaped Roman armies and was refounded as a colony in the late Republic. Augustine, a native of Hippo, proudly boasted of his Punic blood and knowledge of the Punic language. The language was, Augustine laments, dying by his time, but it was preserved not only in inscriptions (of which we have many in the Roman Period), and of course as a spoken language, but in actual manuscripts as well. None of these have survived, but we know from Livy that the Punic manuscripts at Carthage were distributed by the Romans to the kings of Africa, by which me probably means the Numidians (or so it would seem from a brief note in Sallust).