I wish we would know more about Carthage. Historians/archaeologists can't really seem to figure out a lot of things about their customs and religion. Thanks to effective Roman genocide apparently.
The Romans were very effective in destroying the old city, but the biggest problem is simply that later Romans - I believe it was actually Julius Caesar - built a new city on its ruins, and since the Romans and Carthaginians tended to worship very similar gods - we know, for example, that the Carthaginians worshipped Ba'al, for instance, and the Roman colonists also worshipped him, no doubt to assuage his anger at their destruction of his greatest city - it's very, very difficult to ascertain which practices were Carthaginian, which were Roman, and which were both.
This is not to mention that anti-Carthaginian propaganda by the Romans makes it very difficult for archaeologists to be objective when they come across things like the mass infant burial grounds discovered in the 1990s. The Romans always claimed that the Carthaginians practiced infanticide and human sacrifice - leaving aside the fact that the Romans were also known to practice both on occasion - so the discovery was seen as proof of this practice. It was only later that it was realised that the graveyard was actually the result of a plague, and that it dated to Roman times anyway.
Well, I think that the second Punic War can be considered the turning point in the global history. Since then, the Latin culture started its way to being the main culture of the world.
It's not the main culture of the world
now and never really has been. You
could make a claim that at the height of the Roman Empire it may have beaten Chinese culture in the number of its adherents and the area of its influence, but such an argument would be difficult to support and kind of pointless anyway. Still, Latin culture is very, very important, not the least due to its alphabet and calendar, as well as, of course, the Vatican.
Maybe if Hannibal hadn't manage to turn Carthage into such a dangerous opposition against Rome, the Romans wouldn't have had to counquer North Africa at all, and maybe they would have just stayed in Italy and Gallia.
So, can you imagine the world without Hannibal?
The Gauls, Dacians, Germanians and others weren't legitimate threats to Rome either - at least not most of the time - but it didn't stop the Romans from stomping them. Even if one presupposes that Carthage never recovers enough from the First Punic War to militarily threaten Rome, its sheer economic power makes it a necessary conquest if Rome is to secure its position as the Mediterranean hegemon. And make no bones about it, by the time the First Punic War had ended it would have been very difficult to stop either Rome or Carthage from dominating the Mediterranean. There were no countervailing forces in their region, much as there was keeping the Eastern Mediterranean states in check. A Roman/ Carthaginian hegemony was by no means inevitable, but it becomes very likely with the outbreak of the Second Punic War.
Largly agree. Weren't they part of the Phonecian diaspora? And sadly cut down just before their golden age by Scipio Africanus. Why don't you give us a paper HB?
How do you get cut down
before a golden age? Not that the term "golden age" really means anything anyway. And yes, they were part of the Phoenician diaspora. The original colonists were apparently from Tyre.
Carthage is awesome. Hannibal's got to be the only military commander to ever lose a war without losing a single battle.
Say what?
Romans did quite a dick move by spraying the Carthaginian lands with salt following the third punic war.
Symbolic only. It wasn't enough to stop the Romans from establishing their own successful colony on the site. Salt was simply far too valuable to waste on wrecking land, especially land that you controlled yourself.
From what I understand though, Carthage and Rome were quite friendly up until the Punic Wars. It was the Roman politicians wishing to gain prestige and political favor that created the environment for war, was it not?
Carthage and Rome were outright allies in several of Rome's wars for control of the Italian Peninsula. It was an uneasy alliance though, more akin to Britain's pre-WWI alliance with France or the joint Soviet-German actions before Operation: Barbarossa than a modern-day alliance based on mutual geostrategic goals like the Anglo-American or Austro-American alliances.
The Romans were wary of Carthage, and vice versa, because both were expansionist powers with commercial interests in the Western Mediterranean. The arrival of a Carthaginian fleet at Tarentum (Taranto) after the Romans put down a revolt there was the cause of much protest among the Roman Senate, who recognised the strategic importance of the port and knew that Carthage would love to possess it. The Carthaginians protested that their fleet had shown up merely to assist their Roman allies in crushing resistance in the city. When rival factions in Sicilian city of Messalna appealed to Rome and Carthage for assistance, the two erstwhile allies chose different sides - it must be said that the Romans chose the most unpleasant of the two factions, but did so pragmatically, knowing that it gave them their chance to establish a foothold in Sicily - and as such faced off against each other for control of Sicily.
After Rome won this war it signed another treaty with Carthage. While Carthage was embroiled in a brief civil war - the mercenaries they'd used in the First Punic War revolted, requiring Hamilcar Barca, the greatest Carthaginian general from the war with Rome and, incidentally, Hannibal's father, to crush them - Rome violated the treaty by brazenly seizing Carthage's territories in Corsica and Sardinia. After this, Rome and Carthage were technically allied again, but it was only a matter of time before they butted heads again, this time over Spain, where both had interests. The demarcation line between their areas of influence was hazy at best, and Hannibal sought a pretext for war with Rome's ally, Saguntum (Sagunto) to start the Second Punic War. This war had nothing to do with Roman agression whatsoever. Despite great initial success, Carthage was utterly defeated in this war, and Scipio Africanus Major stated that he only spared the city itself because he'd been replaced as general by his political opponents, and refused to see another man get the triumph that he'd earnt at Zama.
The Third Punic War was entirely an act of Roman agression. Cato the Elder famously ended every speech he made by saying "Carthage must be destroyed" and his reasoning was simple; the city, despite its defeat in the Second PUnic War and extremely harsh peace terms, was still thriving. So Rome repeatedly issued ridiculous ultimatums, and even after Carthage obeyed most of them, rendering it little more than a Roman protectorate, Rome issued further ultimatums. So Carthage opted to fight. It did an absolutely excellent job, but was severely outmatched, even given their surreptitious effort to re-arm in the interwar period, including their brilliant, and highly illegal under the terms of the treaty, secret dockyards. It never stood a chance.
Only the Third Punic War can be described as a result of direct actions by Roman politicians in search of political power and prestige. The Second War was started by Carthage, and the first war, while started by the Romans, was clearly a pragmatic, imperialist war, in which both states' interests collided head-on.
