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Carthage was trying to conquer Rome. They had no choice but to keep fighting. ...But they didn't raise a full army again until the next generation of soldiers
by koheripbal 3y ago
Carthage was trying to conquer Rome. They had no choice but to keep fighting.
...But they didn't raise a full army again until the next generation of soldiers was raised and Carthage had returned to North Africa.
- jbandela1 3y ago> Carthage was trying to conquer Rome. They had no choice but to keep fighting. Not really. They could have reached a negotiated settlement. Both the first and second Punic wars ended in a negotiated settlement (of course very much in favor of Rome). Carthage would likely have been ok with Rome agreeing that all of Spain would be in Carthage’s sphere of influence. Worst case, they would return Sicily which they gained in the first Punic war. Rome’s decision to keep on fighting was not one necessitated by survival or maintaining independence.
- vlovich123 3y agoI think it’s less important what we think and more important how contemporary Roman leaders would have thought about it. Are there any writings on how they saw it?
- B1FF_PSUVM 3y agoBesides https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carthago_delenda_est https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carthago_delenda_est ?
- credit_guy 3y ago"Carthago delenda est" was being said more than 50 years after the battle of Zama. Nobody alive at that point in Rome had any personal memory of a time when Carthage was a danger to Rome.
- B1FF_PSUVM 3y agoThanks, good point. I guess the Senate always was a pretty mean bunch ...
- btilly 3y agoThere are. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carthago_delenda_est https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carthago_delenda_est describes the most famous position. And the somewhat less famous position of Cato the Elder's opponent, Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica Corculum.
- languageserver 3y ago> Not really. They could have reached a negotiated settlement. bronze age wars weren't a lesson in diplomacy
- ffgjgf1 3y agoIron age. But even if we go 1000 years back to the bronze age according to the evidence we have diplomacy was still a very important aspect of conflict resolution. That was the thing about the Romans which many found surprising back then. After they were defeated in battle and when everyone expected them to attempt to negotiate a peace settlement to minimize their losses, they just kept on fighting.