Overnight, your Ancient Coin Collection becomes WORTHLESS

Via the River Meander...

 

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Slipped and fell, Doc...

 

LOl "Talking Heads".

 

What's sad is that we are letting this new ideology come up in the most recent posts, news, Might I say train of thought. When your search results become outright distorted triths to the main stream of people that actually believe it. We have a problem.
Propaganda turns to reality, and the majority forgets the actual truths, because they are to lazy to do anything other than believe what they read. Idiocracy and 1984 aren't so far fetched lately.

 

Carthaginians we're a colony of the Phoenicians if I am not mistaken who settled and dominated that territory. They ruled as a privileged class dominating the natives which did result in civil unrest and conflict with that population.

They then colonized other lands and while some became clients, others were taken by force. They had a system over time of monarchy and a form of republicanism, and they fought wars to hold onto their territories. Through trade and wars utilizing military and naval superiority they did fight for dominance (punic wars being just one of many wars fought) and control of territory to build an empire which they defended and also sought to ever expand.

They sound very much like Republican Rome to me. I wonder what they would have done to Rome had they won...sat down for some tea and a chat maybe. I think to simply call them traders is simplistic, they were an empire that sought expansion and domination.

 

Yeah, but I am a young'n. At least I like to Identify as one.

 

You are right, as far as they where a dominate power in the region. Nothing wrong with Empires. The difference between the Carthaginians and the Romans was how they treated non citizens/ populations of conquered territories. The RR has a long list of nasty villians.....Crassus/ Sulla/ Julius Caesar. Carthage on the otherhand did not. Brutality commited by the Republicans/ forced labour in the mines/ enslavement/ being slaughtered in the arena/ slaves who did not comply....were crucified. Also, they had no sense of morality or compassion. Eventually, fate would see Crassus and his army annihilated at Carrhae by the Parthians/ Caesar his end in the Senate. Sulla would die a horrible death caused by bad habits.

 

From what I have read they treated their slaves much like the Romans did. They did all manner of labor, where made up from conquered enemies and all manner of people from their empire... some got more privileges than others etc...in both cases slaves could gain freedom at times, some worked skilled labor, others hard labor.

As for the dictators you speak of, you may have a point but Carthage dealt with any threats to their supremacy quite harshly as well as in the case of putting down slave rebellions or uprisings like the libyans. Lets not forget that the the Gauls were, and had been on the past, a serious threat to Rome.

Rome could be very harsh but they could also be relatively hands off if the rules were followed. They were generally tolerant of the customs and religions of the people they conquered or client kingdoms. They even adopted customs and religious practices from some of those cultures. Without doubt they saw themselves as superior, I have no doubt Carthage elite did as well.

I tend to think you might have a more idealized view and it doesn't help that so much more about Rome is know in great detail compared to Carthage. You may be right but I tend to see them as not much different than Rome.