In the various independent Phoenician city-states—on the coasts of present-day Lebanon and western Syria, the Punic colonies on the Mediterranean Sea, and in Carthage itself—a shofeṭ (Punic: šūfeṭ) was a non-royal magistrate granted control over a city-state, sometimes functioning much in the same way as a Roman consul; for example, both offices served a one-year term in pairs of two.
