RE: An Historical Perspective
June 17, 2019 at 9:23 am
(This post was last modified: June 17, 2019 at 9:48 am by Anomalocaris.)
(June 16, 2019 at 11:08 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: Been doing a bit of reading on the Punic Wars. It seems that the Carthaginians were mainly interested in business, helling around and having a good time. The Romans, on the other hand, lived hard, frugal lives and practiced the Latin virtues of gravitas, pietas, simplicitas, and adultery.
War was inevitable.
Boru
That’s the Roman propaganda - Roman simple virtues triumphant over Carthaginian perfidy and decadence, which is in no small part an artifact of later Romans trying to sooth the deep trauma experienced and long lasting insecurity inflicted when Hannibal brought Romans to the conviction that Rome's final demise in the hands of Carthage could be very near.
The reality seems to have more to do with Romans and Carthaginians having filled all the vacuum available after the Greek city states in southern Italy and Sicily had declined in power and the Hellenistic powers the rose after Alexander had withdrawn, they had no other enemies in their own environs to confront than each other. Rome triumphed because Rome had a far larger manpower pool, and a political system fighting a 3rd century equivalent of total war and thus willing and able to draw its manpower reserve down almost to the last without giving up, while Carthage fought a limited war and its political system proved unwilling to thrown the last measure onto the balance to seal the deal when prowess of her generals had brought her to the very cusp of final victory.