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Turns out that Cato the Censor was right.

by AllegedAlec 3y ago

jwestbury 3y ago
Carthago delenda est!
miroljub 3y ago
[flagged]
- mihaic 3y ago
  Very strange to see US-style political discourse applied to the ancients. It really is true that as we do one thing we do all things.
  - miroljub 3y ago
    The destruction of Cartagena is the first known example of purposeful destruction of the whole civilization. The USA and the annihilation of native american civilizations came many centuries later.
    - ffgjgf1 3y ago
      No it’s not. It’s a bit more documented than some previous examples but we have written evidence for this occurring in the middle east and archeological evidence that would suggest it in many other places..
    - AlbertCory 3y ago
      Maybe read a book on Genghis Khan
    - AlgorithmicTime 3y ago
      Just off the top of my head... Assyria.
    - csomar 3y ago
      There are still significant artifacts from Carthage and the city rose back very quickly. My guess is that the same-same of war happened: The elite were killed but the rest of the population was spared. Rome probably spread this rhetoric to embolden its image. Let's just say this was a different time.
- AllegedAlec 3y ago
  > No, Cato was not right. He was a racist, war criminal and very corrupt politician. Even if he was all of that, which I'd dispute or at least question, that doesn't mean he wasn't right
  - ffgjgf1 3y ago
    > which I'd dispute or at least question, He wanted to destroy and almost exterminate/enslave a massive city for much more practical reasons than stopping child sacrifice (which was a side note at best..). How could you question that?
    - AllegedAlec 3y ago
      He's accused of being three things and give evidence of one of his policies as a reason. For which of those, and how that policy make him that?
      - ffgjgf1 3y ago
        Im sorry? For instance Plutarch and Livy described one of the campaigns he lead in Spain. Every successful military commander in ancient Rome was a war criminal by modern standards. That not a particularly interesting statement considering how obvious it is but it’s not like anyone could disagree with it. To be fair Cato might have been excessively cruel even by Roman standards since because he did coin this phrase https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellum_se_ipsum_alet https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellum_se_ipsum_alet But let’s not go that far…
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
- ffgjgf1 3y ago
  > Eradicating the whole civilization because of some obscure practice that most of the civilizations at the time practised to some extent? That wasn’t even close to the to being the reason or even one of the reasons why they did that. > He was a racist, war criminal and very corrupt politician. Weren’t they all? You couldn’t be a military leader without being a war criminal or a politician without being corrupt by modern standards. That wasn’t really possible in the ancient world.. Feigning shock or disgust at ancient practices might be fun but it’s pretty futile..
- xdennis 3y ago
  Why was he a racist? The Carthaginians weren't very different from the Romans.
- csomar 3y ago
  Rome declared war on Carthage when it tried to expand West (Modern day Algeria). Carthage was warned about this but decided to try its' hand. Let's just say that the Roman at the time were not Chamberlain.
eropple 3y ago
About what? Romans practiced ritual human killing, too. They acted very haughty about others doing it, but they buried people under a temple when Hannibal whomped them at Cannae and they very happily and publicly performed ritual killings of prisoners of war during triumphs. Cato thought that was fine--why then, not, Roma delenda est? Another example that comes to mind: the xōchiyāōyōtl in Mexico did involve human sacrifice, and it even was a nontrivial ramp-up in the act from pre-Mexica societies. Such acts then used in part to legitimate oppressive activity by European colonizers. They needed, after all, to be civilized. But contemporaneously Christopher Columbus himself, the guy who's got pictures in American government buildings, instituted "bring us impossible amounts of gold every year or we chop off your hands" and "test your swords' sharpness by hacking off children's legs" when lording over the Taino. This is not an incongruity that can be reconciled, it must be understood and accepted, and the idea of "taking sides" in this flippant way for a conflict two thousand years old is deeply, deeply foolish.

Turns out that Cato the Censor was right.

jwestbury 3y ago

Carthago delenda est!

miroljub 3y ago

[flagged]

mihaic 3y ago
Very strange to see US-style political discourse applied to the ancients. It really is true that as we do one thing we do all things.
- miroljub 3y ago
  The destruction of Cartagena is the first known example of purposeful destruction of the whole civilization. The USA and the annihilation of native american civilizations came many centuries later.
  - ffgjgf1 3y ago
    No it’s not. It’s a bit more documented than some previous examples but we have written evidence for this occurring in the middle east and archeological evidence that would suggest it in many other places..
  - AlbertCory 3y ago
    Maybe read a book on Genghis Khan
  - AlgorithmicTime 3y ago
    Just off the top of my head... Assyria.
  - csomar 3y ago
    There are still significant artifacts from Carthage and the city rose back very quickly. My guess is that the same-same of war happened: The elite were killed but the rest of the population was spared. Rome probably spread this rhetoric to embolden its image. Let's just say this was a different time.
AllegedAlec 3y ago
> No, Cato was not right. He was a racist, war criminal and very corrupt politician. Even if he was all of that, which I'd dispute or at least question, that doesn't mean he wasn't right
- ffgjgf1 3y ago
  > which I'd dispute or at least question, He wanted to destroy and almost exterminate/enslave a massive city for much more practical reasons than stopping child sacrifice (which was a side note at best..). How could you question that?
  - AllegedAlec 3y ago
    He's accused of being three things and give evidence of one of his policies as a reason. For which of those, and how that policy make him that?
    - ffgjgf1 3y ago
      Im sorry? For instance Plutarch and Livy described one of the campaigns he lead in Spain. Every successful military commander in ancient Rome was a war criminal by modern standards. That not a particularly interesting statement considering how obvious it is but it’s not like anyone could disagree with it. To be fair Cato might have been excessively cruel even by Roman standards since because he did coin this phrase https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellum_se_ipsum_alet https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellum_se_ipsum_alet But let’s not go that far…
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
ffgjgf1 3y ago
> Eradicating the whole civilization because of some obscure practice that most of the civilizations at the time practised to some extent? That wasn’t even close to the to being the reason or even one of the reasons why they did that. > He was a racist, war criminal and very corrupt politician. Weren’t they all? You couldn’t be a military leader without being a war criminal or a politician without being corrupt by modern standards. That wasn’t really possible in the ancient world.. Feigning shock or disgust at ancient practices might be fun but it’s pretty futile..
xdennis 3y ago
Why was he a racist? The Carthaginians weren't very different from the Romans.
csomar 3y ago
Rome declared war on Carthage when it tried to expand West (Modern day Algeria). Carthage was warned about this but decided to try its' hand. Let's just say that the Roman at the time were not Chamberlain.

eropple 3y ago

About what? Romans practiced ritual human killing, too. They acted very haughty about others doing it, but they buried people under a temple when Hannibal whomped them at Cannae and they very happily and publicly performed ritual killings of prisoners of war during triumphs. Cato thought that was fine--why then, not, Roma delenda est? Another example that comes to mind: the xōchiyāōyōtl in Mexico did involve human sacrifice, and it even was a nontrivial ramp-up in the act from pre-Mexica societies. Such acts then used in part to legitimate oppressive activity by European colonizers. They needed, after all, to be civilized. But contemporaneously Christopher Columbus himself, the guy who's got pictures in American government buildings, instituted "bring us impossible amounts of gold every year or we chop off your hands" and "test your swords' sharpness by hacking off children's legs" when lording over the Taino. This is not an incongruity that can be reconciled, it must be understood and accepted, and the idea of "taking sides" in this flippant way for a conflict two thousand years old is deeply, deeply foolish.