IS IT TIME TO REVIVE CARTHAGE?

The Carthaginian Empire is sorely missed. They’ve been gone for 2,169 years and nobody since has quite been able to match the hijinks they got up to: sailing around the Mediterranean on their fishing boats, sending elephants and tens of thousands of men on suicidal treks across the Alps, and occasionally sacrificing their children to the fertility god, Baal Hammon, so their crops would grow faster. Carthage may be an oldie, but they are most certainly a goodie. It was sad when Carthage was destroyed. They were really cool. They had elephants, they had a cool general named Hannibal, and they had a cool sounding name. It’s time they were brought back.

Carthage was founded in 814 BC in modern day Tunisia by Phonecian colonizers as one of many Phonecian city-state colonies spread out across the Mediterranean. The Phoenicians were a Semitic people from modern day Lebanon. In the seventh century BC, Phonenecia was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire which meant Carthage became independent. Soon the former colony started creating colonies of its own and by 300 BC, it dominated the Western Mediterranean with the largest empire the region had seen up to that point. They controlled northwest Africa, southeast Spain, western Sicily, Corsica, and Sardinia. The backbone of their empire was maritime trade which was protected by a large navy that dominated the waves.

What could have caused this glorious empire to fall? One word: Rome. In a series of three wars called the Punic Wars (Punic is Greek for Phoenecian), Carthage fought the emerging power of the Roman Republic over hegemony in the western Mediterranean. Both nations appeared to be winning at different points in the conflict but Rome won all three wars. In 241 BC, at the end of the First Punic War, Rome took Sicily, Corsica, and Sardinia from Carthage and replaced them as the dominant sea power in the region. In 201 BC, at the end of the Second Punic War, Rome took the rest of Carthage’s territory except for their heartland and effectively reduced them to a vassal state. In 146 BC, at the end of the Third Punic War, Rome completely destroyed the Carthaginian state, never to return, and absorbed it into its empire. 

One tricky thing about bringing back Carthage is that nobody today actually identifies as Carthaginian. No matter. An alliance of chronically online history bros should be recruited to cosplay as Carthaginians. They will rejoice at the opportunity to bring back one of their favorite ancient sigma male empires. It will also be the first sunlight they’ve had in years, so they will need considerable training on how to avoid sunburn.

The cosplayer army will then storm the beaches of Tunisia and march to Tunis, the capital city that Carthage is now a district of. Our brave warriors will demand that they repudiate the 1985 treaty between the mayor of Tunis and the mayor of Rome which symbolically ended the Third Punic War. If they accept, they will seek to cooperate with the Tunisian government in creating a Carthaginian state. If not, they will threaten to take control of the government. They will probably spend the night in a jail cell. The plan may seem hopeless, but so did it seem when Hannibal lost 68,000 men when crossing the Alps but he then convinced many Gallic tribes to join which made back all his losses. Maybe the Gauls can help? Oh wait, Julius Caesar conquered them, Rome culturally assimilated them, and eventually they became French. Rome sure loves getting rid of cool ancient guys, don’t they? Hannibal would have never hurt Gauls! Oh wait, the way he convinced them to join him was by massacring a Gallic tribe. These ancient generals are hard to defend! Assuming Tunisia cedes control over to the cosplayers, that should be the first step of the plan. Next will be vengeance upon Rome or in modern terms, Italy. Old grievances will be enumerated. They will be organized by Rome’s three cardinal sins: luck, determination, and arrogance.

It will be pointed out that Rome didn’t win the wars fair and square but through annoying luck. When the First Punic War started, Rome was actually the underdog and Carthage was the established power. Rome had just recently finished conquering the Italian peninsula and had no navy to speak of. They had a stronger army than Carthage but it seemed an impossibility for them to defeat Carthage, who practically controlled the sea, with no navy. The center of their first conflict was Sicily, a valuable island situated smack-dab in between Rome and Carthage. It was inevitable that they would go to war over it. A betting man would’ve without hesitation said Carthage would win because Rome had never had to sail to war before. 

Then the annoying luck came. A Carthaginian ship just happened to crash ashore in Italy and Roman engineers copied the design and mass produced it. Still, Rome could have ships but they would be far inferior to Carthage’s seamen as they had no experience while Carthage’s navy was made of professional merchants and traders. Then Rome’s pesky determination came in. They innovated the design of the ship by adding the corvus, a drawbridge with an iron hook that could anchor enemy ships and allow Romans to board them, turning the sea battle where Carthage had the advantage into a land battle where Rome had the advantage. This was not nearly enough to win the war. After the surprise of the initial usages of the corvus, Carthage found ways to counter it and the war would go on for another 20 years. The bigger picture though is that the early victories allowed Rome’s navy to live to fight another day and they gained invaluable seafaring experience.

The argument for Rome’s arrogance will be based on the humiliating treaty they imposed on Carthage at the end of the first war. They demanded massive war reparations Carthage couldn’t afford and ceded Sicily to Rome. Hannibals’s father, Hamilcar, the preeminent Carthaginian general at the time, was forced to sign off on the treaty but he loathed the Romans for what they had done to his country and he also loathed the Carthaginian Senate for surrendering to Rome. The mercenaries who had been paid to fight for Carthage revolted when they didn’t receive the pay they were promised. Rome took advantage of the crisis by invading Corsica and Sardinia and stealing them from Carthage even though that wasn’t part of the deal. This further enraged Hamilcar. He instilled in his boy Hannibal a deep hatred for Rome and a desire for revenge. This would have profound consequences as Hannibal would make it his life mission to enact his father’s vengeance and would start the Second Punic War by making a surprise crossing of the Alps into Italy. 

Further evidence for Rome’s arrogance is exemplified by Cato the Elder, a Roman statesman and historian, who ended all his speeches in the interbellum between the second and third wars with the phrase “Carthage must be destroyed”. These speeches usually had nothing to do with Carthage and Rome was at peace with them and yet, this revered Roman still felt the need to mention how much he disapproved of their continued existence. 

These pieces of evidence will be used to argue that Rome bullied Carthage and that they were playing on easy mode. For compensation, it will be demanded that Rome pay reparations to the Carthaginian cause. If none of this works, at least it was worth a try. Maybe Carthage can just remain a pleasant memory.