You thought this book would just be the story of Rome's obsession with defeating their long time enemy, Carthage. You were wrong. Read the subtitle. It's the entire story of the whole Carthaginian civilization. That worked out pretty well, since you didn't know the first thing about Carthage. One good reason for that is the very title of this book... Rome wiped Carthage off the map.
"Carthage Must be Destroyed" is an impressive scholarly work. It was obvious that Miles spent years researching old histories and archeological records to bring this story to you. Despite the fact that the title is a Roman quote, Rome doesn't even appear until a hundred pages in. The first third of the book was dedicated to the history of how Carthage was founded and where it came from. 3,000 years ago, the shores of what we now call the Holy Land (Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Egypt) were dotted with small city states, each with its own unique culture. One of the most powerful of these cultures, referred to collectively as Phoenician, was a city called Tyre. Tyre established itself as an extraordinary trading hub. The people of Tyre were consummate sailors and had built trading posts all along the Mediterranean shores. They had even managed to leave the confines of the Mediterranean Sea, establishing colonies on the Atlantic coasts of Spain and Morocco 800 years before Jesus was born. This civilization was so old, that some of their trading agreements were with kings with names like David (as in "And Goliath") and his son, Solomon. They struggled against such Old Testament characters as the Assyrians and the Babylonians.
In 814 BC, a city was founded by the citizens of Tyre that became much more than a simple colony or a trading post. Located on the southern shores of the Mediterranean Sea, in what we now call Libya, the new city was named Carthage and it was strategically placed in the middle of the Phoenician trade routes, halfway between the lucrative Spanish silver mines and the parent city of Tyre. The culture of Carthage was very Phoenician in flavor and the religion borrowed heavily from the Greek city states on the other side of the sea. Heracles (also called Melqart) was one of Carthage's chief gods and the people of the city identified themselves, not as Africans, but as Phoenicians with Trojan or Greek heritage. This identity will become important later in the book.
As the generations passed, Carthage spread her influence throughout the Mediterranean. The nearby islands of Sicily and Sardinia were soon dotted with Carthaginian outposts, and before long wars were being fought over who had influence over these areas. Carthage supported small kingdoms and petty rulers against the Greeks and other adversaries vying for influence. By 500 BC, slowly but inexorably, Carthage had established herself as the preeminent force in the western Mediterranean Sea. Following in the footsteps of Tyre, she had established outposts along the Atlantic coasts and a captain from Carthage, Himilco, was even rumored to have reached the shores of Ireland and England centuries before any other European cultures. The Carthage colonies and her people were called Punic, and the wars she would eventually fight against Rome would bear the same name, the Punic Wars.
By 500 BC, Rome was merely a growing Latin power on the Italian peninsula, but nothing for Carthage to fear. The Romans signed a treaty with Carthage in 509 BC and agreed to limit their trade routes (Rome was not much of a sea power then) and to stay out of Carthaginian business interests, while Carthage agreed to leave Roman settlements along the Italian coasts alone and allow Rome to slowly expand its area of influence. That very year had seen Rome depose her king and establish a powerful Senate as the governing body of a new Roman Republic.
The real concern for everyone in the known world at that time was Alexander the Great. Sure, he had lead his armies far off to the East, but his sacking of the city of Tyre and his desecration of the Tyrian/Carthaginian god, Melqart sent a clear message to Carthage. Soon, it was feared, Alexander would turn his gaze westward and no one could be confident that they would not be conquered by the great general from Macedonia. Alexander made the world feel like a small place.
In response to the fear inspired by Alexander, Carthage redoubled her efforts to secure her influence in the Mediterranean. One thing became clear as you read "Carthage Mvst be Destroyed." Humans kill each other a lot and we have been doing it for a long long time. Some of the battles being fought over who had control of certain settlements in Sicily resulted in up to 100,000 casualties. Those are World War One numbers, but these battles were being fought two and a half thousand years ago!
Eventually these constant wars and skirmishes lead to clashes between Rome and Carthage. The Punic Wars had begun. The Romans eventually invaded North Africa and besieged Carthage before being driven off. But this, the First Punic War, resulted in one huge strategic change in the region. Carthage had been replaced by Rome as the rulers of the Mediterranean Sea.
In 227 BC, a Carthaginian general had founded a Spanish city of New Carthage. It came to be known as Cartagena (a name that would much later be brought to the New World and be established as the capital of Columbia). This new city was more than a trading post, it represented a Carthaginian colony and it's people were named after the founding family, the Barcids. When their ruler/general was assassinated, his son replaced him. Hannibal was his name, and, though Carthage would eventually disappear, his name would be remembered forever. He would bring war to Rome, crossing the Alps with his African elephants and marching to the gates of Rome itself. Hannibal wreaked havoc on the Italian peninsula for fifteen years before returning to his home.
Hannibal's army was an eclectic mix of people and fighters. This was one of his strengths on the battlefield. He was able to confuse his enemies by tailoring his choice of soldiers to suit each tactical situation. The Second Punic War may have been the first time that a commander's tactical awareness and abilities were more important than his number of troops or types of weapons. But maybe more important than that distinction was that Hannibal had taken a page from Alexander the Great. He had brought with him his own propagandists. They were careful to highlight the shared religion between Hannibal and the old Greek and Phoenicians cultures. They pointed out to the Italian peoples that Hannibal's growing armies were following in the storied and holy footsteps of Heracles when the great hero had returned the legendary cattle herds of Geryon. These Carthaginian story tellers and poets, these propagandists made the case that Hannibal was a more legitimate ruler than any Roman Senate. In this way, Hannibal was not simply fighting Roman generals on the field, he was fighting Roman leaders in the hearts and minds of their people. And it worked. Rome labored frantically to bolster its own image as the paragon of piety and as the legitimate cultural heir of the Greek traditions.
Hannibal took war to a new level. He was brilliant on the battlefield, at Cannae he had counter-intuitively weakened his center so that his cavalry could wrap around his enemies' flanks and destroy them even as they believed they were winning the fight. But his true genius lay in the realm of propaganda. As brilliant as this was at the time, it almost ensured that Rome would feel the need to eventually view Carthage not as regional threat, but as an existential one.
After Hannibal was defeated outside the walls of Carthage by the Roman general Scipio (thereafter known as Scipio Africanus) Carthage declined as a military power in the region. But defeat in war lead to prosperity in economics (as would later be true of Germany and Japan in the latter half of the 20th Century). Carthage soon became prosperous enough that she was seen as indispensable to the growing Roman war effort as Rome pushed to expand her own empire. In the decades after the Second Punic War, the north African metropolis, free from the need to maintain an empire or a standing army, became an economic powerhouse.
This could not stand. Again, Rome turned her eyes toward her old enemy, and one hundred and fifty years before the birth of Christ, Carthage was utterly destroyed. Having removed her chief and oldest rival, Rome soon fell into Civil War. Without the foil of Carthage, the Roman people had no enemy by which to compare themselves. Eventually the mythology of Carthage entered Roman culture in a new and nostalgic way. By 20 AD, the Roman poet Vergil had written the Aeneid and Carthage was recast as a beacon of piety and honor, her loss deeply felt across the civilized world. Nothing remained of a once great civilization but stories and ruins.
The story of Carthage reminded you once again why you read history books. There is always more than one side to every story and there are always so many more stories out there. You are fascinated by these stories. Some tales are waiting to be told, but some will never have the chance to be heard again.
It all reminds you of a sonnet by Shelley.
"Ozymandias"
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."
On to the next book!
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