The first genocide: Carthage, 146 BC

[Horatius]

Found this interesting article by Ben Kiernan online http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summa...86-21589350_ITM if you have a library card you can read the whole thing without registering. Interested in what others think of this. Was it the shame of the Republic ? Was the third Punic war just a sham and entirely unjustified?

[Sertorious]

An interesting article - I subscribed! As I recall, the Lord God instructed the Israelites when they approached Canaan which he was kindly 'giving' to them, to "slaughter every man, women & child and all beast on four legs" - or something in that vien (I think even the fowl copped for it too!). I was very shocked when I first read it some years ago and ever since have quoted it as a very early reference to genocide.

Guy

[Kosmo]

I could not read the whole article. It sounds interesting, but the destruction of Carthage was nothing unique in that era. After all Corint was razed in the same year while romans had no grudge against the greeks. Tarentum and Syracusa, the capitals of Western hellenism had already been destroyed.

[Horatius]

It really is an interesting article. I wish I could find the whole thing without having to register. I just had to click on the bottom link and it sent me to my local library where I just had to enter my library card #. Apparently Professor Kiernan is well known for his studies of genocide and it's ideological causes http://www.yale.edu/history/faculty/kiernan.html . Thought people might enjoy it since it is a little different perspective than we usually see.He is pretty scathing in his criticism of Cato the Elder and I like the way he ties in the Roman national epic The Aeneid. What separates Corinth from Carthage is that the Carthaginian culture was destroyed.

Edited January 24, 2008 by Horatius

[spittle]

Only the Americans and canadians can access it!

 

Could someone with access copy and post it?

[Primus Pilus]

I've temporarily disabled public access to the entire article posted by Sertorius while I investigate the copyright. Publication here, vs. open access by the library is an entirely different set of circumstances for an article or book that is not in the public domain (published 2004).

 

Edit: Nephele found this on the website:

Can any researcher access the content?

 

No. AccessMyLibrary is designed to grant access only to users with a valid entitlement to an eligible library, so Publishers may rest assured that their content remains in a protected space and can only be viewed within the The Gale Group product.

 

Quite clear that we can't republish without permission. I'll send Professor Kiernan an email to see if he would mind if we do so for the benefit of our non North American visitors.

[M. Porcius Cato]

It's a good article. Thanks for pointing it out. I think the article makes it quite clear that the destruction of Carthage was not entirely unjustified, but consistent with conservative Roman values (i.e., the equation of trading with murder, the romanticization of peasant farming over urban civilization, a policy of ruthless suppression of revolts, the belief in Roman maiestas--"betterness", etc). It was obviously shameful to kill and to enslave so many unarmed men, women, and children, but those events were made possible not just by Cato's famous exhortation but by the shameful ideas that made it possible to ignore the humanity of the Carthaginians.

Edited January 24, 2008 by M. Porcius Cato

[Horatius]

It's a good article. Thanks for pointing it out. I think the article makes it quite clear that the destruction of Carthage was not entirely unjustified, but consistent with conservative Roman values (i.e., the equation of trading with murder, the romanticization of peasant farming over urban civilization, a policy of ruthless suppression of revolts, the belief in Roman maiestas--"betterness", etc). It was obviously shameful to kill and to enslave so many unarmed men, women, and children, but those events were made possible not just by Cato's famous exhortation but by the shameful ideas that made it possible to ignore the humanity of the Carthaginians.

I agree MPC. The sheer magnitude of the obliteration of a culture that had rivaled Rome for many centuries is something that I had never really thought of before. It must have stunned the ancient world, although as was pointed out not all Romans agreed with this policy. The ideology behind it is the meat of the article though and I think Professor Kiernan does a good job there. Like I said before it is a different perspective than we usually see.

[Julius Ratus]

Like the old saying goes, if you can't beat them, kill all evidence that you had to try...

 

Enough being silly. I don't actually consider it a genocide. The sacing of Carthage and other such cities was done to show other states what happened to them if they resisted Rome's dominance. Same thing with the Assyrians. It was a threat, and had to do more with politics than race. The Romans didn't seem to care about the race of their foes, just that they were foes. They tolerated other states that submitted to them, take Pergamum for instance.