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>Sadly for Carthage Before you sympathize too much with Carthage, bear in mind that their (well documented by contemporary sources even if you account for anti

>Sadly for Carthage Before you sympathize too much with Carthage, bear in mind that their (well documented by contemporary sources even if you account for anti-Carthagian propaganda from some Roman sources) religious practices were distinctly grotesque, involving no shortage of child sacrifice that even included burning children alive. Notable families were also encouraged to do the same to their first sons in times of crisis, but would often buy the children of poor people to go in their place. I know the Romans really, really disliked the Carthagians, so it must have tainted their view on them in all circumstances, but even then, there are enough sources professing outright disgust about their sacrificial practices to give the complaints some weight. And if Romans of all people are disgusted with how brutal a country's cultural practices are, you can imagine that they probably were pretty damn awful.

Aspos 3y ago
It just happens that current world we live in is influenced by European civilizations, which were significantly influenced by the Romans. So your world view is stemming from Roman culture. Now imagine Carthage won the Punic wars and destroyed Rome, what would we be disgusted with while reading about Roman customs? What would we be considering brutal, awful and barbaric?
- incrudible 3y ago
  Are we not considering many Roman customs brutal, awful, and barbaric? What did the Carthaginians not do that the Romans did?
- southernplaces7 3y ago
  I would consider sacrificing living children to be brutal and grotesque no matter who does it or for what reason, Roman, Carthagian or Aztec, or anyone else. As for your premise, it's flawed. For a society whose world view supposedly stems from Roman culture, we're kept extremely aware by many sources about how brutal the Romans could be too. It's hardly something painted pretty by modern media or books. Quite the opposite. It's also generally absurd to think that I must automatically be influenced by some propaganda if I consider plausible the ancient records and evidence of another society's extreme sacrificial practices. As another comment in this reply thread mentions, (though it mistakes Aztecs with Maya), people spent decades thinking that accounts of mass Aztec child sacrifice were colonial era-biased exaggerations, until mass graves of children were much more recently found showing signs not only of sacrifice but torture in advance (to induce tears for the god Tlaloc among other reasons). Sometimes historical cultures are just awful in certain ways that have to be mentioned in posterity, even if we can appreciate other aspects of those cultures. This applies to any culture and should.
dghughes 3y ago
Rome bad-mouthed the Rasenna (Etruscan in Latin) basically calling them all whores. But some Rasenna people were a big part of Roman history and even Senators. Rome wrote history to suit themselves. It's the same with Carthage almost nothing exists except for what Rome said the culture was like.
naremu 3y ago
While it's interesting and something I hadn't heard about, Carthage's potential religious human sacrifice aspect of culture, this comment is ironically not that far off from historical views/curiosities of rival societies. I'm reminded of how most all the hallmarks we attribute to the Spartans turns out to be literal hearsay of the time (much of it emanating from...yep, times of conflict/rivalry). Although they were apparently intentionally secretive, it's pretty easy to imagine some not-anthropologist merchants passing along gossip which gets taken in by the rival permanent settlements. Not that Carthage is free from accusation, but I'm reading some historians actually claim Romans found the religious ceremony of sacrifice to be abhorrent, as opposed to the more general infanticide that was recorded throughout the larger region (including Rome) for presumably a more eugenic/pragmatic purpose.
- smallnamespace 3y ago
  The Spanish also had many accounts of Mayan child sacrifice. These accounts were often dismissed by historians on suspicion of prejudice. We've more recently found archaeological evidence of the Mayan practice on a massive scale. Sometimes dismissing evidence because of perceived bias is simply incorrect.
  - naremu 3y ago
    To be fair, I haven't ever heard suspicions of prejudice as an argument to discredit Spanish expedition's writings on the matter, presumably as I've heard the accounts were often eyewitnessed, unlike typical Roman/Greek depictions of distant places they were frequently declaring cultural and actual war on. I also didn't dismiss potential evidence for Carthage's sacrificial culture, of which there's enough to make the accusation, but really, only that. I don't actually have a horse in the races of dead people, but I do hesitate to perpetuate even ancient culture wars. It's usually just going to make more use of people's tribal desire than their deductive skills, though why people have emotions about ancient, dead societies, I'll never know.

Aspos 3y ago

It just happens that current world we live in is influenced by European civilizations, which were significantly influenced by the Romans. So your world view is stemming from Roman culture. Now imagine Carthage won the Punic wars and destroyed Rome, what would we be disgusted with while reading about Roman customs? What would we be considering brutal, awful and barbaric?

incrudible 3y ago
Are we not considering many Roman customs brutal, awful, and barbaric? What did the Carthaginians not do that the Romans did?
southernplaces7 3y ago
I would consider sacrificing living children to be brutal and grotesque no matter who does it or for what reason, Roman, Carthagian or Aztec, or anyone else. As for your premise, it's flawed. For a society whose world view supposedly stems from Roman culture, we're kept extremely aware by many sources about how brutal the Romans could be too. It's hardly something painted pretty by modern media or books. Quite the opposite. It's also generally absurd to think that I must automatically be influenced by some propaganda if I consider plausible the ancient records and evidence of another society's extreme sacrificial practices. As another comment in this reply thread mentions, (though it mistakes Aztecs with Maya), people spent decades thinking that accounts of mass Aztec child sacrifice were colonial era-biased exaggerations, until mass graves of children were much more recently found showing signs not only of sacrifice but torture in advance (to induce tears for the god Tlaloc among other reasons). Sometimes historical cultures are just awful in certain ways that have to be mentioned in posterity, even if we can appreciate other aspects of those cultures. This applies to any culture and should.

dghughes 3y ago

Rome bad-mouthed the Rasenna (Etruscan in Latin) basically calling them all whores. But some Rasenna people were a big part of Roman history and even Senators. Rome wrote history to suit themselves. It's the same with Carthage almost nothing exists except for what Rome said the culture was like.

naremu 3y ago

While it's interesting and something I hadn't heard about, Carthage's potential religious human sacrifice aspect of culture, this comment is ironically not that far off from historical views/curiosities of rival societies. I'm reminded of how most all the hallmarks we attribute to the Spartans turns out to be literal hearsay of the time (much of it emanating from...yep, times of conflict/rivalry). Although they were apparently intentionally secretive, it's pretty easy to imagine some not-anthropologist merchants passing along gossip which gets taken in by the rival permanent settlements. Not that Carthage is free from accusation, but I'm reading some historians actually claim Romans found the religious ceremony of sacrifice to be abhorrent, as opposed to the more general infanticide that was recorded throughout the larger region (including Rome) for presumably a more eugenic/pragmatic purpose.

smallnamespace 3y ago
The Spanish also had many accounts of Mayan child sacrifice. These accounts were often dismissed by historians on suspicion of prejudice. We've more recently found archaeological evidence of the Mayan practice on a massive scale. Sometimes dismissing evidence because of perceived bias is simply incorrect.
- naremu 3y ago
  To be fair, I haven't ever heard suspicions of prejudice as an argument to discredit Spanish expedition's writings on the matter, presumably as I've heard the accounts were often eyewitnessed, unlike typical Roman/Greek depictions of distant places they were frequently declaring cultural and actual war on. I also didn't dismiss potential evidence for Carthage's sacrificial culture, of which there's enough to make the accusation, but really, only that. I don't actually have a horse in the races of dead people, but I do hesitate to perpetuate even ancient culture wars. It's usually just going to make more use of people's tribal desire than their deductive skills, though why people have emotions about ancient, dead societies, I'll never know.