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> My growing distrust of soft sciences over the past few years means that this article did not move the needle in me to believe Carthage practiced child sacrifi

> My growing distrust of soft sciences over the past few years means that this article did not move the needle in me to believe Carthage practiced child sacrifice, not one millimeter. There is a trove of independent historic stories and tales about child sacrifice in Carthage from Plutarch, Plato and even the Bible. In some sense I think it would more obvious than not to assume that child sacrifice did take place.

lelanthran 3y ago
> There is a trove of independent historic stories and tales about child sacrifice in Carthage from Plutarch, Plato and even the Bible. So? Historic stories and tales from a time when those things weren't written down but handed orally from generation to generation are generally far removed from the truth. After all, even in an age where almost everything is written down we still battle to separate baseless accusations from substantiated facts.
- dan-robertson 3y ago
  The bible was initially an oral tradition but I’m pretty sure Plutarch and Plato were written down from the start.
  - fastball 3y ago
    Yes, but Plato and Plutarch weren't eyewitnesses, they were recording the claims of others, i.e. still rooted in oral histories.
    - ffgjgf1 3y ago
      Or texts written by others. I’m sure there were way more punic or greek sources written down by eyewitness than we have now (by several magnitudes)
- ffgjgf1 3y ago
  > things weren't written Why do you think they weren’t written done? Carthage and many other from which we have no surviving texts were highly literate societies and there is no reason to think that Greek or Roman historians did not use those sources.
rsynnott 3y ago
Couple of issues there; you’d have to question the independence (at the remove of time it’s impossible to know if there was a single source), and if you’re going to take attestation by multiple ancient writers as strong evidence of a thing, well, you’re going to end up believing some odd, and often contradictory, things. That sort of evidence isn’t nothing, but _in itself_ you probably need to be very careful with it.
- easytiger 3y ago
  It's the quotation of source material love the most about this comment
- the_mitsuhiko 3y ago
  I don't dispute that, but we have both multiple written sources about the practice and the Tophet of Carthage is an actually existing cemetery containing both young children and animals. So while there is no definite evidence in one way or the other, I would argue it's not outlandish to assume that the written history is to be trusted here.
- ffgjgf1 3y ago
  > you’d have to question the independence The Greeks had no issue describing the bizarre Etruscan custom of no exposing “excess” female infants and treating the more or less equally to boys. Killing infants or even young children was really not a big deal in the ancient word. Viewing it as some act of extreme evil is mainly a Christian thing…
  - rsynnott 3y ago
    Oh, sure; I'm strictly talking sourcing independence (none of these are primary sources, and what _their_ source was is generally unclear). To be clear, I'm not saying Carthaginians didn't sacrifice kids, I'm saying that claims from Plato and Plutarch, _in themselves_, are not great evidence for this.
    - ffgjgf1 3y ago

lelanthran 3y ago

> There is a trove of independent historic stories and tales about child sacrifice in Carthage from Plutarch, Plato and even the Bible. So? Historic stories and tales from a time when those things weren't written down but handed orally from generation to generation are generally far removed from the truth. After all, even in an age where almost everything is written down we still battle to separate baseless accusations from substantiated facts.

dan-robertson 3y ago
The bible was initially an oral tradition but I’m pretty sure Plutarch and Plato were written down from the start.
- fastball 3y ago
  Yes, but Plato and Plutarch weren't eyewitnesses, they were recording the claims of others, i.e. still rooted in oral histories.
  - ffgjgf1 3y ago
    Or texts written by others. I’m sure there were way more punic or greek sources written down by eyewitness than we have now (by several magnitudes)
ffgjgf1 3y ago
> things weren't written Why do you think they weren’t written done? Carthage and many other from which we have no surviving texts were highly literate societies and there is no reason to think that Greek or Roman historians did not use those sources.

rsynnott 3y ago

Couple of issues there; you’d have to question the independence (at the remove of time it’s impossible to know if there was a single source), and if you’re going to take attestation by multiple ancient writers as strong evidence of a thing, well, you’re going to end up believing some odd, and often contradictory, things. That sort of evidence isn’t nothing, but _in itself_ you probably need to be very careful with it.

easytiger 3y ago
It's the quotation of source material love the most about this comment
the_mitsuhiko 3y ago
I don't dispute that, but we have both multiple written sources about the practice and the Tophet of Carthage is an actually existing cemetery containing both young children and animals. So while there is no definite evidence in one way or the other, I would argue it's not outlandish to assume that the written history is to be trusted here.
ffgjgf1 3y ago
> you’d have to question the independence The Greeks had no issue describing the bizarre Etruscan custom of no exposing “excess” female infants and treating the more or less equally to boys. Killing infants or even young children was really not a big deal in the ancient word. Viewing it as some act of extreme evil is mainly a Christian thing…
- rsynnott 3y ago
  Oh, sure; I'm strictly talking sourcing independence (none of these are primary sources, and what _their_ source was is generally unclear). To be clear, I'm not saying Carthaginians didn't sacrifice kids, I'm saying that claims from Plato and Plutarch, _in themselves_, are not great evidence for this.
  - ffgjgf1 3y ago