ASMR - History of Carthage and the Phoenicians

hello everyone please make yourself comfortable we have another long trip to the past on our menu denied more than two thousand years ago the romans captured sacked and completely demolished the city that had once threatened their very existence carthage after many battles over more than a century the last finnish and bastion in the world was no more and a page of history was turned carthage was located in north africa in modern tunisia and it had been one of the largest most advanced and most influent cities of the ancient world but its history had started far from the shores of tunisia and long before rome even existed far to the east in the levant this is the page of history we are going to explore tonight you certainly heard of phoenicia an ancient civilization from the middle east oriented towards the sea that terminated trade in this part of the world three thousand years ago and funded colonies all around the mediterranean sea including carthage the phoenicians keep many mysteries for a long time they were considered almost a lost civilization because of the relative lack of written records about them we will see why that that's a paradox because the phoenicians made many contributions to the advancement of culture and techniques they had the world's oldest known alphabet they did not invent writing but as far as we know they were some of the first to write words made of letters as opposed to writing systems based on ideograms like the egyptian hieroglyphs for example they influenced the hebrew arabic and greek alphabets and in turn the latin alphabet that we use all the time but this is just one thing among many others we will discuss tonight i will also tell you of their origins their culture their religion how ancient trade worked the founding of cities and colonies and of course the epic of carthage so please sit or lie down and this story is also made to help you relax or fall asleep so don't hesitate to close your eyes whenever you feel like it you can always return later thanks to the timestamps if you like it better you can also listen to my stories on audio streaming sites like spotify or apple music there is a link for that in the first comment pinned under this video especially if you like ancient history you will find an audio story about the library of alexandria that i recently made specifically for audio streaming so it is not on youtube and i know it can be slightly annoying to not find everything in one place but i would very much like to be less dependent on youtube and audio streaming platforms are a good alternative another alternative and one where you can find everything i do is patreon if you wish to become a patron of this channel on patreon you can listen to every story with and without background sounds you can download all audios and videos you get regular updates there is also a link to patreon in the pin comment but what really matters right now is that you enjoy the upcoming story so take a deep breath exhale and let's begin our journey to the past around the 12th century bc more than three thousand years ago in the middle east in southeast europe and north africa there was a time of economic political and urban collapse for several powerful and ancient cultures this sudden change this event is called the late bronze age collapse and it affected different civilizations at the same time some survived but were very weakened like egypt and its new kingdom or the assyrian empire from mesopotamia others collapsed like the empire of the hittites from anatolia and levant in modern turkey and syria in greece the ancient greek culture called mycenaean greece i told you about it in various stories already was also very affected large cities and towns that were the centers of the economy declined dramatically and life became organized around small isolated villages this nested for several centuries a period that has been called the greek dark ages before greece began the cultural rebirth he rebuilt its cities and developed the classical culture that made it so influential the reasons for this late bronze age collapse are not very well known there are multiple possible explanations including volcanic eruptions droughts changes in military technology because iran working would have begun to appear at this time possibly invasions or migrations most probably wars too and maybe a combination of these different reasons but what we know is that suddenly over three or four decades states and cultures that were flourishing in this part of the world all declined at the same time i am telling you this because even though the late bronze age collapse was a leap backward it was also a transition phase and new cultures or new peoples emerged from it either because they were liberated from the dominance of others or they were better adapted to the new times that were beginning and this was the case of the phoenicians as the egyptians the mesopotamians the anatolians or the greeks that surrounded their region of origin were losing their political structures and were becoming unable to project their influence their culture their trade or their armies the phoenicians rose to prominence for about 1 000 years with periods of expansion and decline their maritime network would spread all around the mediterranean sea and make them some of the most skilled and wealthiest merchants and mariners of the antiquity so it is during this period of the 12th century bc that the phoenicians rose as an advanced independent civilization and original society they benefited from the decline of their neighbors that they were there long before in a coastal region that was centered on modern lebanon and extended to israel to palestine to the south and syria to the north the phoenicians belonged to a group of people called canaanites the peoples that lived in canaan a term familiar to readers of the bible but what is canaan exactly canaan was at the same time the name of a region that corresponds to the levant that is to say the stretch of land or the land bridge between africa and eurasia the term levant was defined in europe in the middle ages to name a region with unprecise limits to the east it means literally where the sun rises there was a time when the term included egypt turkey or even greece but in the past couple of centuries or in archaeology its definition was limited to the stretch of land between egypt and turkey in arabic there is a similar term al-majlik meaning the eastern place where the sun rises but the definition of the arabic match rick is wider it encompasses the entire arab middle east the eastern part of the arab world so canaan as it appears in the bible corresponds to the southern levant that provides the main settings of biblical narratives the land of israel philistia the confederation of cities and furniture among others the term canaanite to name the inhabitants of canaan is like a catch-all term because it was not a single country not even a single ethnic group for example it is believed that the philistines the inhabitants of philistia were a people of indo-european origin that had similarities with the mycenean civilization of greece they arrived and settled at the time of the late bronze age collapse but still canaanites are considered a relevant category because they populated the same region there was a lot of overlap between populations there were reciprocal cultural influences and their languages belonged to the same family of semitic languages and in the two or three centuries before the late bronze age collapse canaan the southern levant became the region where the spheres of influence of powerful empires from mesopotamia egypt and anatolia the hittites converged and overlapped they all fought for it first because they wanted to expand and secure their frontiers second because canaan was a crossroads and he gave access to trade with other regions and also because of its resources in particular the north what is modern lebanon and would be called furniture had forests that could provide logs timber for ship making war monuments and palaces the egyptians and mesopotamians lacked this resource whereas furnisher had plenty of native cedarwood that was very sought after so they all tried to secure trade with cities of furniture that could sell timber or even better submit them in the 15th century bc these cities were under egyptian influence the cities were independent from one another and the largest and most influent at the time was bibles but there were also sidon tyre beiruts which made them easier praise for foreign powers because they were very small states in the 14th century bc the hittites captured venetian cities especially in the north and egypt lost its coastal holdings but despite these recurrent walls in which they were at stake venetian cities managed to prosper during this period they processed and exported cedarwood they could support large populations because they had a temperate climate and the land was fertile and they also played on their central position between powerful and wealthy empires to become centers of trade and also centers of crafts by blows for example became a center for bronze making the region was nearing the iron age but bronze was still by far the most used type of metal the city received precious goods such as tin and lapis lazuli that it transformed and it managed to keep a degree of autonomy it was not annexed by anyone other cities like tyre and sidon did the same they were independent from one another and rival despite being culturally very close each one had its small territory and they didn't form they actually never formed a single state and then came the late bronze age collapse that was disastrous for many civilizations in the region but not for furnishing cities quite the opposite actually maybe because there were small city-states it was easier for them to stay united and also the weakening or disappearance of their neighbours left a vacuum that they could feel they became the only maritime and mercantile powers in the region the status they would maintain for several centuries and they also helped the mediterranean economy to recover in the 11th and 10th centuries bc after the collapse for example they re-established long-distance trade that had been lost between mesopotamia and egypt this period of emergence as an original and independent civilization is sometimes called the phoenician renaissance but instead of staying in the corner of the mediterranean sea phoenician cities became more and more outward looking the collapse of all main powers in the east of the mediterranean had left them with an opportunity to expand to the west as maritime and trade powers and they used it the creation of carthage and many other settlements around the mediterranean sea would be a consequence of this before we talk about finnish and expansion and the most successful of their colonies carthage let's take a look at phoenician society and religion politically i told you that the phoenicians were never united there were independent city-states that rarely allied as far as we know and they were governed by hereditary kings the kings were considered representatives of the gods and they carried a lot of obligations of duties concerning religious processions and rituals in the high spheres of society there were also classes of nobles and merchants we don't exactly know how separated these glasses were whether they mixed or stayed very separated another powerful glass was priesthood which was apparently very influential of course all these people accounted for only a small percentage of the population maybe a few hundreds per city state whereas the vast majority of the population worked as farmers craftsmen soldiers or sailors compared with other antique societies the phoenicians had a very high proportion of mariners and their economy was totally oriented towards the sea and trade routes from the moment they rose to prominence in the 12th and 11th centuries bc they became the intermediaries between the various peoples that spanned the mediterranean sea further and further west until they reached the atlantic ocean morocco and portugal these distances were huge for the antiquity several thousand miles and to travel such distances they needed good ships in the 12th century bc they already built large merchant ships of course they were helped by the abundance of cedarwood but they became expert ship builders and they introduced types of ships or innovations that lasted for the rest of the antiquity for example they developed the keel the bottom most structural element on a vessel it is a simple but very important element to stabilize ships when they travel on seas and not just follow the coastline centuries later around 700 bc they may have been the first to introduce the byrim that is to say a type of ganna with two superimposed rows of oars on each side by rims were long vessels that were used as warships because they could go faster and be less dependent on the winds so they were perfect to attack or sometimes escape from other ships and they are also credited for later inventing the tri-rim an even bigger higher type of galley with three rows of walls the greeks copied these ships they always had intense relations with the phoenicians and actually began to compete with them on the sea when they recovered from the fall of the mycenaean civilization the phoenicians also developed several other maritime inventions like the m4 this type of containers generally made of ceramic with a pointed bottom that other mediterranean cultures adopted because it was convenient to transport things by sea or land from wine to oil to fish amphoras can fit tightly against each other tied together with rope and amphoraes became a standardized measurement of volume for a very long time until the middle ages 2 000 years later the phoenicians also contributed a lot to ancient cartography they established some of the first maps that covered the entire mediterranean world so they acted as intermediaries but also sold the goods they produced it is a constant in ancient trade powers together with international trade you always find a large production of crafts and luxury goods the greeks also had it i elaborated on that in the past story about the history of ceramic i'll put a link in the description much later venice when it was a major trade power of the middle ages also was a center of production of fine crafts international trade always stimulated a production of luxury or expensive goods with a high commercial value for the phoenicians there was glass making they did not invent glass glass based appeared centuries earlier in mesopotamia and egypt but they became experts at making small glass objects like beads and flasks at the time glass was an expensive material they also exported all sorts of metal work of bronze later iron and gold ivory carving would work but the most prized fenesian goods were fabrics more specifically fabrics died with tyrion purple named after the city of tyre the fortunes of phoenician cities varied with time i told you earlier that bibles was probably the wealthiest and most influent when furnisher was disputed together with the rest of canaan between their powerful neighbors before the bronze age collapse but after bibles declined relatively and successively sidon and tyre rose to become the richest and most powerful city-state of furniture it is people from tyre who founded carthage when the city was at the peak of its power in the 9th century busy tyrion purple is also something i told you about in a story about the history of colors it is also known as furnishing red or imperial purple this color was very rare in fabrics and pricey in the antiquity it was expensive because the phoenicians had a monopoly on it and the extraction process of the dye was very labor intensive it came from a particular type of marine snails which used to be very common in coastal waters but was exploited to extinction because it was expensive hard to find and not obtainable with any other kind of dye this imperial purple color became a symbol of power and wealth in greek and even more in roman culture and a major source of income for the phoenicians in the first millennium bc to complete this overview of the economy the phoenicians were also big producers of wine they helped propagate its consumption all across the mediterranean they founded colonies near mines like in cyprus which had copper and in sardinia and as far west as spain which in the antiquity was a major source of metals for the phoenicians and later the romans spain had gold iron copper tin and lead these colonies were generally small most of the time no more than a thousand inhabitants and they worked as trading posts the only exception and it's a big one would be carthage in general the phoenicians did not have the numbers or the intention to create a large empire with many territories what motivated them when they created colonies was control of trade routes proximity to the places where resources could be extracted or sold and increasingly competition with greek cities free sand lost its first cities of the mycenean period following the late bronze age collapse the population had declined and people in greece after the collapse started living essentially in small villages but in the first millennium bc the greeks progressively re-emerged as an urban civilization also organized politically around city-states like the phoenicians and also very outward-looking willing to explore the mediterranean and establish a presence everywhere so in the 9th 8th 7th centuries bc there was a rising competition between greek and federation cities to put their flag on every corner of the mediterranean sea where there could be trade to be made and dozens of colonies were founded the phoenicians had more in north africa and spain the greeks in italy but there were places like sicily or crete where they had settlements that clashed sometimes overall coexistence between the phoenicians and the greeks was peaceful but they became commercial rivals at the time like four greek colonies the colonies of furniture were fairly autonomous here again there was no desire to create any kind of centralized empire the colonies were seen as little sisters or daughters of the original city-state these colonies were only expected at most to send an annual tribute to their mother city and it was seen as a kind of religious suffering again carthage that we are going to talk about in a few minutes became an exception that before elaborating on carthage let's take a look at phoenician religion it is not known very well because few sources survived and it is not always easy to distinguish phoenician religious beliefs and traditions from their neighbors in canaan what we know is that they worship the pantheon that included a supreme god l e l common to various semitic cultures and another major deity was el's son baal which meant master or lord there were other deities like mel gart or adonis but we don't really know whether these are different names for the same gods or if they were different entities with different local names the most important goddess was astarte sometimes called astarte which is how the ancient greeks named her this goddess was related to ishtar from mesopotamia because of its importance in the history of the mediterranean the phoenician civilization is often looked at under the angle of trade or maritime activities and of course under the angle of carthage the definitions were also intensely religious i told you earlier that their kings were also religious leaders that the priests had a strong influence and it seems there was no clear distinction between the payment of taxes and religious offerings paying taxes and making offerings to the gods were ways of honoring one city and the divine in general venetians of all classes also made a lot of small votive offerings to their gods a waterfalling is the action of leaving an object in a sacred place a temple with no intention to recover or use it this was widespread in ancient societies to gain favor with supernatural forces and it still exists in various religious practices so they are further objects pottery vessels or small figurines made especially to serve as voter of offerings hundreds of these figurines have been retrieved in phoenician ports it is believed that rituals took place on ships before departure and figurines or other ceremics were cast into the sea to ensure safe travels it was not a very common practice but it seems a child sacrifices also happened in times of despair or for certain ceremonies this also existed among other canaanite cultures and it is one of the practices that were severely condemned later in the hebrew and then christian bibles the high point the peak of phoenician cities in the levant when they were independent and completely dominated trade was between 1200 and 800 bc they did not disappear after that and they kept their culture and relevance in trade for several more centuries but they started to be faced with the rise of new empires that they just didn't have the size and population to resist and so they fell under the sway of foreign rulers who reduced their autonomy in the 9th century bc the assyrians from mesopotamia began to conquer furniture and they forced phoenician cities to pay heavy tribute in money in goods and natural resources like metals and wood a century later all cities except byblos and tyre were even annexed by the assyrians some cities revolted but their rebellions were suppressed and the phoenicians never managed to fully recover their independence the asean empire collapsed but it was quickly replaced by the babylonian empire and the babylonians also put furniture in cities and vassalage when the babylonian empire crumbled this time because of the rise of the persian empire the achaemenid empire the phoenicians had lived under pressure from foreign powers for several centuries and instead of revolting they found agreements with the persians they yielded themselves to persia so they could pay tribute and provide the persians with a powerful fleet against a high degree of autonomy when persia went to war with greek cities in the 5th century bc the phoenicians provided most of the persian fleet and culturally they kept their specificity for the entire persian period until the 4th century bc at this point they were still relevant in trade but they were completely surrounded by persian territories and they faced tough competition from the greeks but on the other side of the mediterranean sea a colony of tyre at the time the largest and wealthiest venetian city and had an extraordinary development it is time to talk about carthage the exact date when carthage was founded is a bit uncertain but it was most probably by the end of the 9th century bc at a time when phoenician cities were at the height of their commercial importance but already under pressure from the assyrians that forced them to pay tribute and this only accelerated the founding of more colonies around the mediterranean sea because many people from seiden bible saw tyre carthage was a colony of tyre were willing to move to avoid paying heavy taxes to foreigners tire had been very active in developing its commercial web in the western mediterranean especially in north africa at the end of it there was iberia modern spain and portugal with its valuable metal resources entire had also established its presence in islands like sicily sardinia and balearic islands the site of carthage was probably chosen for several reasons it was located in the central shore of the gulf of tunis which gave it easy access to the sea but at the same time it was shielded from violent storms that often happened in this part of the mediterranean sea it was also close to the strait of sicily which was strategically important because any ship that traveled between the eastern and western halves of the mediterranean has to pass near sicily the strait of sicily is a bottleneck on top of this good strategic location the site had many advantages the city was built on a kind of peninsula with a large lagoon on one side which provided a lot of fish and a place for safe harbor this peninsula was connected to the mainland by a single narrow strip of land and the peninsula had hills so it was a very good defensive position and finally there was a heroball land near the side of carthage which could support a large population the result of this favorable location the intensity of trade because carthage was about halfway between spain and furniture near important islands like sardinia and sicily and on top of that the flow of phoenicians willing to move to colonies was that instead of staying small at a few hundred inhabitants like other colonies carthage grew exponentially in the eighth and seventh centuries bc in one century its population had increased from zero to thirty thousand people a high number for the time and meanwhile its mother city tire was declining in the seventh century especially as a consequence of the wars with the babylonians tire was besieged several times during this period so even though the inhabitants of carthage remain very vanishing in their culture they were so successful unable to stand on their own that they started to identify as citizens of carthage rather than citizens of tyre contrary to other colonies that lived mainly from trade carthage had diversified it also transformed a lot of raw materials and sold its own crafts it produced a lot of food and it had become a trade herb between africa and the mediterranean world it could offer luxury goods like ivory ostrich eggs and feathers gold plenty of food and wine the carthaginians developed a punic culture punic is the latin equivalent of the greek term phoenician punic culture is the name of this western phoenician culture that developed far from furniture for example certain deities became more important in carthage others from greece were also worshipped in the city like the demeter the greek goddess of agriculture it is also possible that carthage retained phoenician religious practices that had fallen out of favor entire like child sacrifices this is uncertain historians still not agree whether the carthaginians practice them or not so bit by bit carthage was diverging becoming independent from a mother city that did not have the means or maybe even the desire to keep it under control by the middle of the 7th century bc carthage was so independent that it embarked on its own colonization process and in the 6th century tire and other phoenician cities had submitted to the persian empire they were incorporated into it so carthage was formally an independent power at this point another trait that distinguished carthage from other phoenician cities was that quickly carthage had different and more ambitions it had an affinity for maritime trade like all phoenician cities but also for imperial and military expansion contrary to bibles tire or sidon it engaged in territorial conquest it became an expansionist power it is unknown exactly why this happened in carthage and in no other phoenician city for example near carthage there was another phoenician colony utica which was much older and had the same advantages that utica never embarked on such a project maybe it came down to a few influential individuals in carthage or events we don't know of or another theory is that carthage received a lot of refugees from phoenicia fleeing the assyrian and babylonian conquests they may have understood that the phoenician model of being on the maritime power with a small population and not much land was very fragile and always at risk with large land empires as neighbours at the time the greeks or the etruscans were influenced in the western mediterranean sea they also had small states or city-states but with larger territories than phoenician states and this threatened the phoenician trade monopoly and finally domestic politics in carthage may have been a factor very little is known of carthaginian politics before the third century bc when was with rome began but the throne of carthage in the 6th century bc was occupied by a king king magor the first who was a general and he developed the land army of carthage with regular soldiers and mercenaries his successors who were from the same dynasty continued this policy so from the sixth to the fourth century specie carthage kept growing as a city but more importantly annexed other phoenician colonies in the western mediterranean and conquered more land to administrate it directly it occupied the coast of north africa from morocco in the west to libya in the east plus sardinia malta the balearic islands half of sicily and the south of spain of course this rise implied more neighbors and clashes with foreign powers in italy there was a young rising power at the time the roman republic which was expanding from central italy but the time of war had not arrived yet in 509 bc at the end of the 6th century carthage and rome signed a treaty that demarcated their spheres of influence the two states had different approaches to their expansion the carthaginians were still very oriented towards maritime control and trade they favored the control of coastal regions mainly whereas rome was more a land power the romans wanted to exploit the mainland and their navy was secondary to their army these were two different cultures and the heritage of furniture influenced carthage a great deal here but also a product of necessity the romans had direct neighbours in the north and south of italy that could threaten them whereas the city of carthage was not close to any enemy that could attack by land so in the 5th and 4th centuries rome and carthage avoided war and each kept growing but the one conflict that could not be avoided for carthage was with the greeks the different greek cities too had many colonies in western mediterranean and this put them in direct competition with carthage the biggest stake in this rivalry was sicily which was half carthaginian in the west and half greek in the east the most important greek city in sicily was syracuse and in 480 bc the tyrant the ruler of syracuse gallo the first attempted to unite sicily under his rule obviously with the backing of other greek city-states the word tyrant in modern english is rather negative pendulative it is a kind of cruel dictator but the original greek term only meant absolute monarch someone who ruled without constitutional power for much of ancient greece it was just a neutral term just something factual that it changed later during classical greece when several greek philosophers like plato and aristotle define the tyrant as a person who rules without law using extreme and cruel measures this is when the term began to become negative but returning to 480 bc this ruler of syracuse launched his conquest of sicily by attacking other greek colonies and the threat to carthaginian holdings in the west was quite obvious so carthage intervened and an expedition was sent to sicily led by the king king hamidkar from the same dynasty as mago the king who had begun to transform the carthaginian army the expedition was a big failure for carthage amid carr lost some of his army on the way to sicily due to poor weather and then when the two armies met the greeks won a decisive victory hamilkar died so there was a power vacuum in carthage and the nobles of the city sued for peace after this war carthage was left with only a marginal presence on the coast of sicily but the most important consequence was a political turning point monarchy disappeared and the elite of nobles and traders created an oligarchic republic in carthage a model closer to the roman republic in which assemblies of noble and common people had the power to constrain their rulers despite this big political change it was only a setback for carthage and the losses in sicily were compensated with more territories conquered in spain and north africa in the 5th century bc carthaginians navigators went even further outside the mediterranean sea they passed the strait of gibraltar between europe and africa they were not the first ones this region had been mapped for centuries but they went further than their predecessors to the north they explored the atlantic coast of europe and to the south along the coast of africa they went as far south as senegal which is quite far for comparison the spanish and portuguese navigators of the middle ages did not dare to go that far south and it is only 2 000 years later in the 15th century that the portuguese dared to go as far the carthaginians never managed to reconquer all of sicily they tried again a second sicilian war 70 years later after the first one and a century later there was a third one but it always ended in status quo the big challenge was yet to come despite all its wealth and its undisputed control of the western mediterranean sea a new great power was rising to the north the roman republic by the beginning of the third century bc rome had expanded too it had secured its frontiers to the north of italy it had gained territories towards the south too and rome was definitely an expansionist power so was carthage and the western mediterranean was not large enough for both carthage the city had reached an impressive size at this point i told you earlier that the city had 30 000 inhabitants in the 7th century bc in the 3rd century bc 400 years later it now had half a million these are just estimates but they give an order of magnitude this made carthage not only the largest city in the mediterranean world at the time but possibly in the world there are very few contemporary descriptions of the city itself we know it had powerful walls dozens of mentions of policies for wealthy traders and nobles it had temples probably public buildings like public baths and very busy markets everywhere the port was huge there are many descriptions of the countless commercial vessels that the carthaginians owned probably hundreds and they were renowned from italy to greece to even furnish her and the middle east for their mercantile skills and their wealth but carthage was not just a mercantile culture it had also put a lot of emphasis on agriculture which was less rooted in finnish and culture on miles and miles around the city there was a considerable number of farms of orchards and vineyards with large private estates that travelers from rome and greek cities have described the carthaginians had a very rich material culture they consumed not only the luxury goods they produced but goods coming from far away from the middle east greece even sub-saharan africa on the other side of the sahara as we're going to see they lost the first war with rome and after that they embraced agriculture and industry even more as a way of compensating for some of the overseas territories they had lost what triggered the war with rome was a military intervention that carthage made in sicily after which carthaginian forces were present in the strait of messina which is the very narrow channel between continental italy and sicily this carthage closer than ever to roman interests on the continent in italy and the romans reacted immediately by attacking the carthaginians which started the first punic war that is to say the first war between rome and carthage and this was in 264 bc both powers were at the height of their power at the time carthage probably had an advantage in navy and wealth whereas rome had more manpower and a very organized and effective land army which the carthaginians tried to compensate with mercenaries this first punic war lasted for more than 20 years not 20 years of continuous battles it took time to send expeditions the romans managed to land in africa but they were repelled whereas carthage had victories on the sea but after this carthage suffered a string of defeats that forced it to sue for peace and to make things even worse it was faced with a large mutiny of troops that it employed and the uprisings of settlements in africa so there was a kind of civil war and when it ended then carthage could stabilize its situation the city had a huge indemnity to pay to rome and the romans had used the events of this mercenary war to seize corsica and sardinia this first war had weakened carthage temporarily but not destroyed it at all actually it rebuilt itself it rebuilt what had been destroyed and restored its wealth so even though rome had gained a bit of ground the dispute was far from settled twenty years of armed peace followed but clearly one of the two powers needed to go animosity grew on both sides again and in 218 bc a second war started which also lasted for a long time 17 years and is the most famous of these punic wars because it saw spectacular action and threatened the existence of rome itself at the start of the war the romans had italy sardinia and corsica and they had reinforced their navy the carthaginians had iberia spain as their main pool of manpower and their army was very diverse it came from various parts of north africa with also spaniards ethnic phoenicians a very large cavalry composed for a large part of new medians the people of north africa who had a reputation for being very good horsemen new media was located in what is the east of algeria today the carthaginians also even had north african elephants a species of elephants that went extinct during the antiquity that they used as assault units and also for their psychological impact they were terrifying to infantrymen who made the bulk of antique armies the most famous episode of this war is the surprise journey of the carthaginian commander-in-chief hannibal with an army of tens of thousands byland from spain to italy which implied crossing the alps by surprise a move that looked impossible for such a large army and its elephants but that hannibal achieved he entered northern italy helped by ghoulish allies and won several victories against the romans including one of the largest battles of the antiquity the battle of cannae in which the romans were crushed despite their higher numbers when they saw this several allies of rome switched side and went with carthage any ball was in italy and the situation looked critical for the romans but it didn't look that good either for hannibal because his army suffered from attrition as a time passed and the war in italy lasted a decade a decade during which the romans refused to concede and instead they used their large manpower pool and everything they had to feel always more armies the romans were also better at siegecraft and they could recapture the cities faster than hannibal could take them they could manage at the same time to more or less control hannibal in italy and send an expedition led by general cpo cpu africanus to spain and end carthage control over it while hannibal was still in italy the final showdown took place near carthage at the battle of zama where the romans led again by cpo defeated the carthaginians the war was lost for carthage and the romans imposed a very harsh piece first because they always intended carthage to disappear as a great power and second for retribution because this war had caused major devastation in italy and there had been a time a few years earlier before the victory when the romans could have been completely destroyed if hannibal had been successful at taking rome carthage could have been at the dawn of another period of expansion and the roman empire may never have existed it is impossible to know but in any case the roman victory in this war turned rome into the dominant power of the western mediterranean rome gained all carthaginians possessions especially spain and carthage was left as almost a roman client state with only its north african territory after the second bunic war carthage was still a large city but the basis of its prosperity its commercial network its navy which had been confiscated its manpower it was all gone there was a third punic war 50 years later in which the romans essentially finished carthage this war was supported by a group of hawkish roman senators for political and imperialist reasons carthage still had attractive agricultural land in north africa there was still wealth to seize and it was a profitable but low risk operation for rome a pretext was found when carthage was attacked by new media and a liar from and rome intervened in support of its ally in reality to take what remained of carthaginian land and totally destroy the ghost of the biggest threat to rome that had ever existed after a long siege carthage was taken and completely destroyed in 146 bc the last venetian political power had disappeared we had left furnisha in the east of the mediterranean sea when the persians had annexed the various cities or subjugated them but even though they were part of the persian empire these cities could retain their phoenician culture and keep existing as commercial powers under the persians but their independence was gone forever after the persians came the invasion by alexander the great by the greeks and finisher was one of the first regions he conquered in alexander's empire and later its successor in lebanon and syria the sea lucid kingdom or empire after ceducos one of alexander's generals phoenician culture increasingly mixed with greek culture and after that in the first century arrived the romans that turned furnisher into one of their provinces phoenician culture continued to dissolve under romanization to the point of going extinct and no longer being distinguishable the province was part of the roman empire for centuries first of the whole empire and then the eastern roman empire byzantium during this period the old religion was abandoned and christianization progressed until the 7th century when the muslim arabs invaded the region and a process of islamization and arabisation started at this point phoenician civilization was long gone already after centuries of being masters of the sea and leaving an important mark on human civilization we have reached the end of our story for the night you can now let go and fall asleep or pick another story from my library if you want sleep well sweet dreams you

Channel: The French Whisperer ASMR

Views: 151,380

Keywords:

Id: e98rXpRQlB0

Length: 71min 17sec (4277 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 15 2022