Carthage: The Roman Holocaust - Part 1 of 2 (Ancient Rome Documentary) | Timeline

the lender asked Qatar go Carthage must be destroyed three short words barked from the mouths of a superpower Rome's death sentence on one of the most dazzling empires of the ancient world [Music] [Music] it was a fine spring morning when Armageddon began the city of Carthage in what is now Tunisia had been under fire for three years when the Roman army broke through the gates of the city from that moment on innocent people had just weeks to live death had come to Carthage and no one would be spared the orders were precise leave not one building standing not one person alive what followed was a Holocaust the Roman troops would tear down Carthage's Senate house burn its library and defile its sacred shrines the year's vicious toil would reduce the city to dust in annihilating Carthage 150 years before Christ the Romans made a whole civilization disappear [Music] Rome wanted Carthage completely and permanently erased Rome zero brutal genocide has now almost forgotten today Carthage was a place of gentle ruins the sightseeing and contemplation that 1 for 6 BC this place witnessed the carnage of an entire people of a civilization who'd lived here for nearly eight centuries the countdown to destruction had begun three years earlier when 85,000 troops had sailed from Rome to Carthage on the coast of North Africa that strangled the city with a siege making its people almost too weak to fight the Romans had really tightened the noose on Carthage that blocked off the harbors thereby starving the people of precious food supplies and even the Miller who lived in this house I found his grindstone would have had very little to do in the last few months of the city's existence but I tell you who was busy and that was the Undertaker's would have gone from door to door collecting the dead starvation and disease would have finished off the very old the very young and the infirm and in fact archaeologists in the 19th century our mass graves where the victims of the Roman siege had been unceremoniously dumped the Roman army torched the city district by district turning it into a blazing inferno when the Romans set far to these buildings in order to smoke out their inhabitants the heat was so intense that it turned these walls red and look at the scorch marks here on these sandstone blocks this must have been absolute hell on earth it took 17 days for the flames to die the Roman soldiers then spent a year tearing the charred structures down to their very foundations underneath this platform a palaces streets temples and shops people's houses and their most treasured possessions the lives of thousands of murdered Carthaginians now nothing more than dust [Music] Carthage famous name what we actually know about it [Music] [Music] virtually nothing which is exactly what the Romans wanted when they tore down Carthage's superb library they made it impossible ever again to hear the Carthaginians in their own words we're left with a history written by the winners which has warped our entire view of the ancient world we learned that Western civilization was built by Egypt Greece and Rome but what I want to show is that leaving out Carthage massively distorts our own past Carthage is sometimes pitied as history's noble victim or despised as cruel perverted and weak but that's not how I see it I believe that Carthage was the tutor at whose feet Rome learnt the art of empire so powerful that it stood in the way of Rome's greatness let me tell your story of how the birth of one superpower demanded the death of another [Music] I've been coming to Tunisia for over 10 years now but I still find the Holocaust of Carthage utterly sobering the Romans were lethally efficient so there's almost nothing left of ancient Carthage now but if you look hard you can still see it's ghosts in the sprawling suburbs of modern-day Tunis which show the sheer size of the old city foundations that lie directly below and cover 20 square miles in today's white houses just like the six story buildings of the ancient city apart from their domes in the faces of living people many Tunisians today may carry the genes of the Carthaginians mix descendants of Middle Easterners and the Berbers of North Africa [Music] Carthage had been built by the Phoenicians master Mariners from the Lebanon merchants he founded the great maritime trade routes the superhighways of the ancient Mediterranean Sea and for an encore they gave the classical world its first alphabet but even they would soon be eclipsed by their African born descendants the Carthaginians by 500 BC Carthage was the richest metropolis the Mediterranean world had ever seen into its markets flowed precious metals jewels fine cloth and spices [Music] the crews that visiting merchant ships would have brought with amazement the shimmering white walls of the mighty harbors the tiers of houses palaces and temples that led up to that great Citadel gleaming in the Morning Sun but more than their glorious metropolis the Carthaginians most lasting achievement was to invent the western Mediterranean before they came on the scene few nations knew how to navigate the Seas the most Mediterranean people lived in isolated communities in their Swift boats the Carthaginians joined these disparate regions into an empire that ran from Spain and Corsica to Sicily and North Africa the Mediterranean to them wasn't some void between countries the outline of an imagined continent their world was a series of coordinates on the map at the scene a vast commercial fleet of 700 ships became a seaborne conveyor belt as they sauntered around the Mediterranean Basin they settled towns on their trade route from Calgary to Cadiz cities that cradled harbors by Palermo with its superb working port [Music] Carthage's empire combined land and sea in a single ecosystem all over the lands they colonized it was Carthaginian Greenfingers that turned a wilderness into fertile farmland [Music] an army of potters spun amphora out of clay to transport these riches around the sea these containers were filled to the brim with olives and olive oil grapes wine and grain the staples of Mediterranean life even today [Music] Carthage helped to create a trans Mediterranean culture I'm always struck as I visit the lands of the Mediterranean Basin but the similarities and lifestyle from here in Tunisia to Sicily and Spain forget the idea of the western Mediterranean as a European sea in 500 BC it was an African Sea run by its undisputed owners the Carthaginians Carthage was the lord of the western Mediterranean it had no rival in Rome Rome was just a small city-state in central Italy you wouldn't have even mentioned them in the same breath we're all stuck with the Cecil B DeMille version of Rome a city of hulking white marble on a good can shoe in scale but in 500 BC Rome was made of wood and mud Hicksville on the banks of the river Tiber a Roman Empire dream on [Music] the story of Carthage forces us to see another side of the Romans not the upright lawgivers but the upstarts not the flag bearers of civilization but that ruthless wannabes by 300 BC Rome was punching and kicking its way to becoming a militarized state by some monstrous embryo were destiny to fulfill straining to be born Rome had been feeling the heat the islands of its west coast were all Carthaginian just that little bit too close for comfort in Sardinia Carthage had riches on tap from its mines of silver gold copper tin and sink [Music] Carthaginians were greedy for land like this in southern Sardinia the earth here is literally crammed full of precious minerals what's more is it's handily perched by the sea ready to disgorge its metals on to the waiting Carthaginian ships for over 300 years the vast mineral wealth of Sardinia and Spain helped pay for the Carthaginian Navy in its efforts to police the Mediterranean Sea and to keep it open for business control of the sea was what counted as rivals developed naval fleets the Carthaginians stayed way ahead of the game their ships could be assembled in the turn of a tide because they were made in kit formed with the instructions written directly onto the wood it was an inspired visionary design that would one day contribute to Carthage's downfall point is that anybody well almost anybody with any rudimentary carpentry experience could put this boat together once you had the prototype you didn't need some fancy boat builder to put it together for you so 2,000 years before IKEA the Carthaginians have created a flat pack Navy and here it is world-class hardware to put the frighteners on your foes Carthage's fleet of john battleships could outpace and overwhelm any other on the mediterranean halcyon days for carthage but it failed to hear the distant rumblings from italy over the sea rome their small insignificant city-state had after a long series of bloody wars subjugated the whole of central italy Rome was on the up there's still nothing more than a small regional power nothing for the Carthaginians to worry about or so they thought but rome had become a contender its legions were creeping southwards devouring land in their palm city by city state by state while the Carthaginians reveled in their success envious eyes were beginning to size up they could fortune from his humble beginnings Rome's rise have been relentless by the third century BC it had bulldozed its way through Italy with determination luck and overwhelming force it wasn't long before the snarling supremacists of the land cast around for a new challenge the sea cottages days of having the Mediterranean to itself were over by 275 BC Rome and Concord virtually the whole of Italy and now she started jealously eyeing up those lucrative southern trade routes which Carthage controlled but before she could mount a serious challenge she had to conquer the sea Carthage's juiciest peach was Sicily almost halfway between Rome and North Africa prime position for a violent tug of love the Chile standoff gave way to cold war Carthage promised to stay out of Italy if Rome kept out of Sicily but I get the feeling the Carthaginians didn't have a clue who they were dealing with here [Music] it was a new elite controlling Rome the nouveau riche gorged on money and short on scruples that's hankering after Sicilies charms [Music] can see why at this superb archaeological site a Carthaginian settlement on the small island of Mattia of the west coast of Sicily the community here was running a lucrative staging post for Carthaginian ships circling the Mediterranean through good reasons why Rome wanted Sicily so badly Rome was governed by fear Sicily was only a short hop away from mainland Italy the places like this this dock motya were fantastic and making sure that Carthaginian ships could be rearmed and restocked for a potential strike on the Italian mainland another reason for Rome's aggression was greed the businessman turned politicians who now controlled Rome had originally made their fortunes through trade in the southern Mediterranean and one of their best customers have been Carthage now the thinking was that if they controlled places such as this they be able to flood North Africa with their produce and so fear and greed Rome's belligerent twins took their first swipe at Carthage's Empire 264 years before Christ history calls it the First Punic War but to me is more than just another ancient conflict it was unparalleled in its savagery and it lasted 25 years [Music] but more than this it marked Rome's blood-soaked birth as an empire I am now in the very waters where Roman and Carthaginian ships once fought in a war that irreversibly changed the balance of power in the Mediterranean [Music] the First Punic War was a real turning point for the Roman Empire Rome traditionally a land power at last found their ceilings but it was a close run thing just listen to this for scorecard they lost seven hundred ships compared the Carthaginians fall up and they lurch from disaster to catastrophe one Roman Apple frustrated but the sacred chickens were meant to all go luck toss them overboard saying if they're not hungry I'd like a drink instead he went on to preside over the biggest naval disaster the Rome ever suffered losing the whole of his but in what must be one of the most bitter ironies in ancient history it was the Carthaginians who inadvertently turned Rome into a major sea pound the course of the war was about to change by credible luck a Carthaginian warship strayed into Roman water capturing the ship Rome now had an unbelievable opportunity to learn how to build the best battleship on the sea Roman boat writes immediately took it apart discovered that every timber was marked with a letter with lightning speed the Roman maybe copied the ship plank by plank nail by nail thanks to those instructions so helpfully left by the Carthaginians and in no time at all Rome had built an identical Navy a staggering 220 ships were built in 45 days Rome could now take on Carthage on equal terms if they could beat Carthage at sea they'd remove the sole obstacle to exploiting the Mediterranean themselves [Music] the balance of power swung violently between Carthage and Rome for another 20 years until in 241 BC Carthage suffered a catastrophic defeat was forced to hand over all of its lands in Sicily Rome could now control the Gateway to the western Mediterranean it could be policemen and tax collector deciding who could come in and who could go out Rome had inflicted a crushing defeat on Carthage in its own element the see Rome now had Carthage's Mediterranean empire in its sights through one vicious war Rome had promoted itself to superpower this is a reconstruction of the column that was put up to celebrate the end of the First Punic War Mis inscription here details the famous naval victory over the Carthaginians you have to understand that 20 years before Rome didn't really have a Navy and now she had defeated Carthage the queen of the mediterranean sea and the Romans were immensely proud of this victory that watched him they had learnt and then they're taken Carthage on in her own backyard and they had won how those Romans must have enjoyed watching the great superpower squirm they forced Carthage to pay the equivalent of tens of millions of pounds in war indemnities to add insult to injury the Roman Navy seized Sardinia the following year and extorted another for luxurious payment from the carthage then with unbridled greed rome added new terms to the post-war treaty arguing that the original ones were too lenient these harsh terms and humiliations were felt keenly in Carthage Rome are breaking the terms of our own peace treaty storing up big trouble [Music] Carthage was a furnace of resentment after its defeat by Rome that kissed away a chunk of their empire to a bunch of upstarts now they were being leached with extortion of fines [Music] the young of Carthage hungered for revenge and out of this fog of hatred and humiliation vengeance was slowly taking human form the young general Hamilcar Barca was sent to southern Spain to try and revive the Carthaginian fortunes and he hit pay dirt this earth has now exhausted after 2,000 years of exploitation was once bursting at the seams with mineral wealth not least of all silver the bullion of the ancient world and with that Carthage can now pay back its debts to Rome and launch a serious challenge to its power first hamilkar masterminded an extraordinary expansion in Spain until Carthage commanded nearly all of the country then he used this new wealth to redevelop the old Phoenician cities like AD is here in the south resting away the hub of Carthaginian power from the old guard in North Africa if the great and the good of Carthage thought that hamilkar was going to bow to their will then they were in for a shock this Carthaginian adventurer had his own agenda he built his own fine imperial capital the chief elite named it carthage after the mother city with his fine harbors with his royal palace with his temple of ash moon this was carthage in spain hamilkar and his heirs built up a belligerent rogue state and was just itching for a fight with Rome and for the appeasers back in the old country Casa del Carthage was dangerously out of control under the water of this valley lies what is left at the vast Carthaginian minds but hamilkar was exploiting to accumulate a war chest big enough to pay for a serious attack on Rome he even drew his little son into the vendetta and here we're in the territory of myth overbearing father dutiful son the boy swears an oath of eternal hatred towards the enemy in front of the altars of the gods and he never ever forgets [Music] you need a backstory like that for the most famous general in history this is not some schmuck in a flak jacket this dear viewer is Hannibal now Hannibal was Rome's worst nightmare here was a Carthaginian it was a brilliant land general he cut his teeth here in the hills of southern Spain campaigning against the tribes now he had a trick up his sleeve 21 elephants now imagine three tons of African elephant flesh bearing down on you full of Dutch courage from the wine which they've been given to drink the things didn't always go to plan sometimes these elephants attack their own troops and for that each of the drivers was issued with a metal spike to drive through the skull of the elephant to kill it in his tracks [Music] [Music] now Hannibal just love doing what his enemies least expected but this mercurial nature was often more fatal for his own side than it was for the Romans only one solitary elephant survived the epic journey and he had to keep on stopping to recruit more troops because of his own huge losses now much is made of Hannibal's pathological hatred of road but I think that there were other more vainglorious reasons for his behavior it's almost like he needed to attack his enemies that he was up for the challenge rather than it being part of some grand military strategy Hannibal was a chancer but he was a successful chancer Spain Gaul Italy final destination [Music] the 206 Hannibal and his armies reached the very gates of Rome now this was a momentous occasion passage was now than a stone's throw capturing their great enemy Hannibal never got the fight he had come for it would surely of obliterated Rome and changed the course of European history the Roman generals appealing to the glory complex that had driven Hannibal from Spain remove their troops and it tyst him away from the city with new battles elsewhere first they played a cat-and-mouse game with him through the Italian countryside and then finally they attacked the city of Carthage itself forcing Hannibal to leave Italy to defend his African homeland Rome had been spared but Hannibal had taken the great capital to within an inch of its life we should never underestimate what a traumatic event this was for Rome and it was a trauma for which Carthage were paid dearly when Hannibal sailed back to Africa for the first time in 30 years I think he must have been shocked and dismayed he found himself rejected by the very city and whose name he had fought he had spent most of his life in Spain and his fellow Carthaginians distrusted him instead of embracing him as a hero the city's elders shunned him as a foreigner they even tried to negotiate a secret peace treaty with Rome behind his back and in 202 BC at Zama the inevitable happened the legendary Hannibal was comprehensively and soundly defeated by the Roman armies it was all over Carthage rewarded him for his pains with a brief stint in government but the exhausted generals soon retired Roman hit men hunted Hannibal down but he cheated them of the symbolic triumph of an assassination or drinking poison [Music] even after his suicide he lived on as a dark presence in the Roman imagination as a mythical demonic power that could be drawn down for decades whenever Rome needed an enemy Hannibal a taunted Rome with the specter of its own death and Rome could never forgive or forget [Music] Carthage was made to pay the pathetic remains of its mighty Navy were set ablaze in sight of the city all its overseas territories were confiscated and it was handed a bill for billions of dollars in today's money that had to be paid to Rome over the next 50 years Carthage had been resoundingly defeated what I find amazing is that this was not the moment that Rome chose to white Carthage off the face of the earth that it would wait for more than 40 years to raise Carthage to the ground when there was no longer a viable excuse but revenge for the Romans was a dish best served cold [Music] this is where it all happened the extraordinary Senate house in Rome this is where Roman hawks and doves debated how to solve a problem the Hawks were led by one of the most controversial figures at the Roman Republic Keita an extremist and Xenophon who calibrated his own life recording to the exploits of the Carthaginians he wrote I first enlisted in the Army at 17 when Hannibal was having his run of luck setting Italy on fire unlike many of his senatorial colleagues he would have sat with him on these benches here Cato couldn't boast an aristocratic lineage but ever the self publicist he was keen for everyone to know what a modest lifestyle he had working in the fields with his slaves and eating turnips 14 later claimed that the lack of statues of him anywhere in Rome proved his extreme modesty others put it down to his repulsive appearance now Cato this puritanical killjoy loved to rail against the luxurious living of his senatorial colleagues he had one senator dismissed for the heinous crime of kissing his wife in public now Cato reserved his most venomous hatred for Carthage this veteran of the second Punic War was adamant that Rome to the destroyed Carthage when she had the chance and every one of his speeches ended with the deadly lines the lender s qatar go carthage must be destroyed for the time being kato was just the malevolent shadow on the fringes of Roman politics he had a powerful opponent the aristocrats gippy own a seeker who led the anti-war faction Carthage is the whetstone of our greatness skip-bo reminded his colleagues it was the esteemed rival that kept Rome's sharp and Rome he argued would fall into greed and complacency if it were to become a sole superpower so the Dove skippy o welcomed a strong Carthage to save Rome from itself [Music] there should have been peace but a miraculous Renaissance in Carthage had the Hawks on the warpath again their economy was booming ten years after their most wretched defeat the Carthaginians had turned crisis into triumph they were able to pay off all their war debts to Rome forty years early [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] in 1 5 3 BC the 81 year old Kato visited Carthage as part of a delegation and was appalled to see how wealthy the city had become again he even suspected that the Carthaginians were breaking the arms limitation treaties made 50 years earlier this certainly wasn't the desired effect of all those puny tip treaties imagine the sheer frustration of the man Carthage simply wouldn't die and the Cato his dangerous rival now had to be snuffed out once and for all [Music] cold-shoulder in the Senate Cato made a play for the people with a charm offensive and eternal stomach repress the flesh staged public games stoked Rome's greed for Carthage's well and manipulated the fear that been a Roman habit ever since Hannibal had shaken the mighty Republic by its map okay so finished off every speech with his malevolent jingle the lender escort Argo Carthage must be destroyed Kaito gave the performance of his life here on the roster of the Senate as he unfurled his toga out dropped ripe juicy figs where do you think I got these from he said they're from a vibrance and / prosperous Carthage only three days sail away the debate was one Kato had managed to trump the enemy against whom he had been agitating for the whole of his life from that moment on Carthage was living on borrowed time Kato was now just looking for the excuse he needed to justify destroying it but Carthage sense the change in the wind over in Rome it was not over yet only small island in Carthage has been a wonderful discovery by the British archaeologist Henry Hearst this was a secret naval facility for 180 Carthaginian warships now this ramp that you can see here and many others would have been all the way around the island led all the way down to the water's edge and ships which needed to be rearmed and restocked would have been dragged up into the center of the island so when was this marvel of maritime engineering actually built well the pottery that the archaeologists found on this site and underneath the structure itself dated it to the end of the second Punic Wars when Carthage had solemnly promised to only maintain a fleet just ten warships so somebody wasn't playing by the rules there was only this narrow channel which is now blocked by this modern road connecting the military harbours over there with the legitimate commercial harbours and the open sea so they were well hidden from prying Roman eyes and not only that but on the island there was a tall tower and where they could keep watch for any visiting Roman weapons inspectors so bitter old Cato's hunch had been right Carthage defiant and defeat was rearming [Music] two years after Cato's visit in 1 5 1 BC a fiery young leader swept into office in Carthage his name was Haskell before long pastoral was fighting to defend Carthage from a neighboring kingdoms incursions but in doing this he rashly broke the terms of the peace treaty with Rome the Romans now had the excuse they needed to wage war on Carthage Rome sent a massive army of 85 thousand men to within striking distance and laid down an ultimatum the Carthage completely disarmed Hasdrubal complied then the Romans made an outrageous new demand that the Carthaginians abandon their capital and stay out of the Mediterranean for all time faced with extinction Carthage had no choice but to stand and fight Katers final gesture before he died was to make sure that the man charged with the destruction of Carthage was another member of the skip-bo dynasty Skippy Oh knew exactly what to do he throttled Carthage of the siege in revenge hash-table ordered that the eyes and tongues and genitals of the Roman prisoners be torn out with iron hooks on the city walls the Carthaginians then flayed them alive and threw their raw still breathing bodies down to their comrades massed below the time had come for the Romans to act one fine spring day Skippy OHS troops at last breached the gates of Carthage's Harbor and Skippy oh now ordered the final assault on the besieged city and it's starving inhabitants but first he rallied his troops with the following chilling words all of you spread fear flight and terror in this city of Carthage and in the following days his troops would follow his command to the letter after capturing the Lower City skip here now turned his attention to the ultimate prize the capital of Carthage the bursar hill last refuge of the city's inhabitants three streets led up the hill the houses the flank than were closely packed together and after six storeys tall as a Roman troops advanced the Carthaginians mounted a desperate defense hurling missiles down from the roof the skip-bo an experienced military man knew how to counter such tactics he ordered that the houses be set ablaze the passageways below be kept free of blazing material in this way the killing squads they carry on their work as more and more houses were set on fire old men women and children had been hidden in these buildings came down the charred and damaged bodies were brutally dragged out of the way by the Mattocks and hooks of the Roman cleansing squads but the living in the dead were hurled into huge pits and others were crushed by the charging horses at the Roman cavalry until their faces and the longer visibly human the city was consumed by this hellish turmoil for six long days and nights skip-bo like any good killing squad commander regularly rotated his troops not only to conserve their physical strength but also their sanity on the seventh day Skippy Oh took himself off to a patch of high ground and looking down calculated that the brutal conflict would not be won for many days yet he turned out to be wrong for a group of Carthaginian elders defying their leader hash-table had taken matters into their own hands they begged skip-bo to spare their lives he granted their request that buried a 50,000 men women and children pastor and naira gate in the wall into a life of grim slavery after watching his people deserting their beleaguered city in droves has troubles nerve finally broke he went to skippy own grovel for mercy this cowardice would not go unnoticed or unpunished his wife had taken refuge from the flames on the roof of the great temple of ash moon along with her children and as the flames flickered around her she poured scorn on the treacherous as purple looking down on her caring husband she delivered a savage rebuke wretch traitor a most effeminate of men this fire will heed to me and my children who what had you o great commander of Carthage what punishments will be inflicted upon you by the man at whose feet you are sitting what Roman triumph would you grace with these words she killed her children and threw them into the fire and then plunged in after them Carthage was dead in the shocking aftermath of this murderous episode the charred ruins of Carthage was systematically dismantled thousands of Roman troops spent a whole year carrying out Cato's words to the letter in the modern world Hiroshima and Nagasaki could be wiped out in a morning at the touch of a button but in the ancient world destroying a city meant getting your hands seriously dirty so why did Rome do it in the end I think it was cold-blooded pragmatism that sealed Carthage's fate Rome understood that it could only become a global superpower by eradicating its most talented opponents astonishingly in the same year Rome did exactly the same thing to the great Greek city of Corinth they did it once they did it twice there was no need to do it a third time this was an object lesson in Rome's absolute power the cold-blooded obliteration are two of the greatest cities in the Mediterranean world sent out a clear message Imperial Rome had arrived things would certainly never be the same for the Mediterranean world again everything would now be run according to a grand imperial plan and the Mediterranean would become Rome's supermarket when they first fought Carthage had been queen of the Mediterranean just over a hundred years later Rome was referring to the Mediterranean as moiré Nostrum our sea this is what it was all about this Roman shipwreck which is now the Museum in Cadiz gives us a wonderful snapshot of the riches now available to Rome after the defeat of Carthage this ship groaned under the weight at the natural produce of the Mediterranean Basin we have ingots from the lead mines of Spain and these amphora would have been filled to the brim with wine olives oil and wheat these were the real spoils of the Punic Wars the Roman soldiers who had annihilated Carthage returned home for their victory procession through the heart of Rome in the same spot where Italians parade today they had a shock in store it wasn't any the Carthaginians who found themselves on the losing side of the Punic Wars what did the peasant farmers who made up the backbone of the victorious Roman armies gained from 20 years of grinding military conflicts the glittering triumphs in which they had marched through the streets of Rome the Garland's of flowers and cheering crowds but made them believe the better future was theirs however they were soon to realize that they'd been sold down the river the senators of Rome had no intention of sharing out the spoils of the Punic Wars they'd even stolen the soldiers land whilst they were away fighting as their a stock which we grew fat on the profits a new underclass was born dependent on handouts and free bread the veterans own land was used to grow the wheat to feed them slabs of carbohydrate to keep them tame later leisure complexes were built but the Colosseum to keep the masses entertained in the end their award for a life fighting Carthage was a cut-price seat to a human cockfight bread and circuses for the masses was not all that is being cracked up to be for 150 years the history of these two rival empires Rome and Carthage was conjoined the richer and for poorer in cold war and in heart for Rome war with Carthage had been a blood-soaked tutelage Rome was pushed to the limits by Carthage this friction became war and war Armageddon without Carthage Rome would never have sharpened itself into a superpower [Music] but it had not finished with Carthage yet in defeat Carthage would be more useful to Rome than ever you

Channel: Timeline - World History Documentaries

Views: 780,311

Rating: 4.6188903 out of 5

Keywords: carthage documentary, ancient rome, rome documentary, history documentary, punic wars documentary, full documentary, full length documentaries, timeline documentary, documentary movies - topic, documentary history, roman documentary, ancient rome documentary, punic wars, rome vs carthage, holocaust documentary, roman empire, carthage the roman holocaust, roman empire documentary, dark ages, carthage roman holocaust, pompeii documentary, mount vesuvius, roman republic

Id: E6kI9sCEDvY

Length: 48min 21sec (2901 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 02 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/simple1689]

Damn, I can't remember the Roman statesmen that was not a fan of Carthage and essentially ended each of his statements on the Senate floor around the lines of "and Carthage must burn"...even if the topic was not about Carthage.

Edit: Thank you /u/mr_bandit_red for help!

"...In 175BC, Cato was sent to Carthage to negotiate on the differences between the Carthaginians and the Numidian King, Masinissa; but, having been offended by the Carthaginians, he returned to Rome, where ever afterward he described Carthage as the most formidable rival of his country and concluded all his addresses in the senate-whatever the immediate subjet might be- with well-known words: "Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam." ("For the rest, I vote that Carthage should be destroyed.")

Now to find how they offended him...

...I read 1960s Lincoln libraries as my shitter read

[u/grandtheftbonsai]

Thanks for this. I’ve always wondered about Carthage.

[u/ShingshunG]

If you like this try listening to dan Carlins "Celtic Holocaust" episode of the hardcore histories podcast. Fascinating stuff.

[u/DevilishGainz]

dan carlin talks about the roman/carthage wars - its quite amazing how he tells his stories. Hope you enjoy. I forget the name - perhaps it was punic wars. Recommend them highly!

[u/djchalack]

Carthago delenda est

[u/[deleted]]

Great channel

[u/tunatrunks]

The same presenter done a series called "Ancient worlds", 6 part bbc documentary about the birth if civilization in the mesopotamia, the iron age, the greek stuff, rise of Alexander, rise of rome and then how rome turned all religious. If people liked this, i guarantee they will enjoy that series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVfYx6sHrB4

It has stuff about Carthage in it as well for those drawn here by that in the title, although it has a much wider scope it has a similar feel.

[u/the_alpha_turkey]

This show forgets to mention that Carthage started the Punic wars and how their religion required the sacrifice of children. What the romans did was evil, yes. But also not all that uncommon for its era. They make this seem like some kind of uncommonly vicious atrocity. This kind of war of extermination was all too common in this era. In fact the ancient Jews carried out similar genocides when the defenders refused to surrender. This was a era of savages killing savages, the carthaginians would have done the exact same, given the chance. The romans were savages with nice buildings, the carthaginians were savages with nice boats. The Greeks, savages with nice poetry, and the gauls. Savages with some nice trees.

[u/nightcrawler616]

Paging /u/Cato_theElder