""Delenda est Carthago"" "Carthage must be destroyed" "Three short words, barked from the mouth of a superpower" "Rome's death sentence" "On one of the most dazzling empires of the ancient world" "It was a fine spring morning, when Armageddon began" "The city of Carthage, in what is now Tunisia" "Had been under fire for three years" "When the Roman army." "broke through the gates of the city." "From that moment on, innocent people had just weeks to live." "Death had come to Carthage, and no one would be spared" "The orders were precise, leave not one building standing not one person alive." "What followed... was a holocaust" "The Roman troops would tear down Carthage's Senate House" "Burn its library and defile its sacred shrines" "The year's vicious toil would reduce the city to dust" "In annihilating Carthage, 150 years before Christ." "The Romans made a whole civilization disappear" "Rome wanted Carthage completely and permanently erased." "Rome's year of brutal genocide, is now almost forgotten" "Today Carthage is a place of gentle ruins, for sightseeing and contemplation" "But in 146 BC" "This place witnessed the carnage of an entire people" "Of a civilization that lived here for nearly eight centuries" "And went beyond physical eradication." "the Carthaginian name wouldl be ground into the mud too" "The concerted campaign of vilification" "Would ensure that even to this day" "History regards Carthaginians as sinister, miserly and entirely without honor." "Their memory was turned as black as the charred ruins of their city." "But the coup-de-grace was one last terrible slur" "That told us that the Carthaginians routinely sacrificed their own children." "Killing young babies, to appease gods, thirsty for innocent blood" "Yet who were these people?" "What is the truth behind these evil tales?" "And why was Rome so bent, on the utter annihilation of this civilization?" "The countdown to Final destruction, had begun in 149 BC." "When 85,000 troops" "Had sailed from Rome to Carthage on the coast of North Africa" "They had strangled the city with a siege." "Making its people almost too weak to fight." "The Romans had really tightened the noose on Carthage." "They had blocked off the harbors" "Thereby starving the people of precious food supplies" "And even the Miller, who lived in this house... they found his grindstone." "Would have had very little to do, in the last few months of the city's existence" "But I will tell you who was busy, and that was the undertakers." "Who would have gone from door-to-door collecting the dead" "Starvation and disease would have finished off the very old, the very young and the infirm" "In fact, archaeologists in the 19th century" "Found mass graves, where the victims of the Roman siege" "Had been unceremoniously dumped" "The Roman army torched the city district by district" "Turning it into a blazing infreno." "When the Romans set fire to these buildings." "In order to smoke out their inhabitants" "The heat was so intense." "That it turned walls red" "Look at the scorch marks here, on these sandstone blocks" "This must have been absolute hell on earth" "It took 17 days for the flames to die" "The Roman soldiers then spent a year, tearing the charred structures down to their very foundations" "Underneath this platform are palaces, streets, temples and shops" "People's houses and their most treasured possessions" "The lives of thousands of murdered Carthaginians, now nothing more than dust" "Carthage is a famous name." "But what do we actually know about it?" "Virtually nothing" "Which is exactly what the Romans wanted." "When they tore down Carthage's superb library" "They made it impossible ever again, to hear the Carthaginians in their own words" "We are left with a history written by the winners" "Which has warped our entire view of the ancient world we learned that western civilization, was built by Egypt, Greece, and Rome" "But what I want us to show, is that leaving out Carthage" "Massively distorts our own past" "Carthage is sometimes pitied, as history's noble victim" "Or despised as cruel, perverted and weak." "But that's not how I see it." "I believe, that Carthage was the tutor, at whose feet Rome learnt the art of empire" "So powerful that has stood in the way, of Rome's greatness." "Let me tell you a story, of how the birth of one superpower." "Demanded the death another." "I've become to Tunisia for over 10 years now" "But I still find the Holocaust at Carthage" "Utterly sobering." "The Romans were lethally efficient" "So there's almost nothing left of ancient Carthage now" "But if you look hard, you can still see its ghosts" "In the sprawling suburbs of modern-day Tunis" "Which show the sheer size of the old city foundations" "That lie directly below and cover 20 square miles" "In today's white houses." "Just like the six-story buildings of the ancient city" "Apart from their domes." "In the faces of the living people." "Many Tunisians today, may carry the genes of the Carthaginians" "Mixed descendants of Middle Easterners and the Berbers of North Africa" "Carthage had been built by the Phoenicians." "Master mariners from Lebanon." "Merchants who founded the great maritime trade routes" "The superhighways of the ancient Mediterranean Sea" "And for an encore, they gave the classical world its first alphabet" "But even they, would soon be eclipsed by their african born descendants." "The Carthaginians." "By 500 BC, Carthage was the richest metropolis the Mediterranean world had ever seen" "Into its markets flowed precious metals, jewels, fine cloth and spices" "The crews of visiting merchant ships would have gawked with amazement" "At the shimmering white walls of the mighty harbors." "The tiers of houses, palaces and temples" "That lead up to that great citadel, gleaming in the morning sun." "But more than that glorious metropolis." "The Carthaginian's most lasting achievement" "Was what they did to the western Mediterranean." "Before they came on the scene, few nations knew how to navigate the seas." "And most mediterranean people lived in isolated communities" "With their swift boats, the Carthaginians joined these disparate regions" "Into an empire that ran from Spain and Corsica, to Sicily and North Africa." "The Mediterranean to them, wasn't some void between countries." "But the outline of an imagined continent." "Their world was a series of coordinates." "on the map of the sea." "Their vast commercial fleet of 700 ships." "became a seaborne conveyor belt" "As they sauntered around the Mediterranean basin, they settled towns on the trade route" "From Cagliari to Cadiz" "Cities that cradled harbors, like Palermo" "With its superb working port" "Carthage's empire combined land and sea in a single ecosystem" "All over the lands they colonized, it was Carthaginian green fingers" "That turned a wilderness into fertile farmland" "An army of potters spun amphorae out of clay." "To transport these riches around the sea." "These containers were filled to the brim, with olives and olive oil Grapes, wine and grain." "The staples of Mediterranean life, even today" "Carthage helped to create a trans-Mediterranean culture" "I'm always struck as I visit the lands of the Mediterranean basin" "Of the similarities in lifestyle." "from here in Tunisia to Sicily and Spain" "Forget the idea of the western Mediterranean, as an European sea." "In 500 BCE it was an African sea" "Run by its undisputed owners, the Carthaginians" "Carthage was the Lord of the western Mediterranean" "It had no rival" "And Rome?" "Rome was just a small city-state in central Italy" "You wouldn't have even mentioned them in the same breath" "We are all stuck with the Cecil B DeMille version Rome" "A city of hulking white marble, on a gargantuan scale" "But in 500 BCE, Rome was made of wood and mud." "hicksville on the banks of the river Tiber." "A Roman Empire?" "...Dream on" "The story of Carthage forces us to see another side of the Romans" "Not the upright law givers, but the thuggish upstarts" "Not the flag bearers of civilization." "but the ruthless wannabes" "By 300 BC" "Rome was punching and kicking its way, to becoming a militarized state, like some monstrous embryo with a destiny to fulfil, straining to be born." "Rome had been feeling the heat" "The islands off its west coast were all Carthaginian" "Just that little bit too close for comfort" "In Sardinia, Carthage had riches on tap" "From its mines of silver, gold, copper, tin and zinc" "Carthaginians were greedy for land like this, in southern Sardinia" "The earth here is literally crammed full of precious minerals." "What's more, its handily perched by the sea" "Ready to disgorge its metals on to the waiting Carthaginian ships" "For over 300 years, the vast mineral wealth of Sardinia and Spain" "Helped pay for the Carthaginian navy" "In its efforts to police the Mediterranean Sea and to keep it open for business" "Control of the sea was what counted" "As rivals developed naval fleets." "The Carthaginians stayed way ahead of the game" "Their ships could be assembled in a turn of the tide" "Because they were made in kit form." "With the instructions written directly on to the wood" "It was an inspired, visionary design" "That would one day contribute to Carthage's downfall" "The point is..." "Anybody... well almost anybody" "With any rudimentary carpentry experience, could put this boat together" "Once you have the prototype, you didn't need some fancy boat builder to put it together for you" "So 2000 years before Ikea the Carthaginians had created a flat-pack Navy" "And here it is.." "World-class hardware, to put the frighteners on your foes" "Carthage's fleet of giant battleships could outpace and overwhelm, any other on the Mediterranean" "Halycon days for Carthage." "But it failed to hear the distant rumblings from Italy over the sea." "Rome, a small insignificant city-state." "Had, after a long series of bloody wars." "Subjugated the whole of central Italy." "Rome was on the up" "But still nothing more than a small regional power" "Nothing for the Carthaginians to worry about" "Or so they thought" "But Rome had become a contender" "Its legions were creeping southwards, devouring land in their path" "Ciity by city, state by state" "While the Carthaginians reveled in their success" "Envious eyes were beginning to size up a good fortune" "From its humble beginnings." "Rome's rise has been relentless" "By the 3rd century BC." "it had bulldozed its way through Italy" "With determination. luck and overwhelming force" "It wasn't long before the snarling supremacists of the land" "Cast around for a new challenge... the sea" "Carthage's days of having the Mediterranean to itself" "Were over." "By 275 BC." "Rome had conquered virtually the whole of Italy." "And now... she started jealously eyeing up, those lucrative southern trade routes." "which Carthage controlled." "But before she could mount a serious challenge" "She had to conquer the sea." "Carthage's juiciest peach was Sicily" "Almost halfway between Rome and North Africa" "Prime position for a violent tug of love" "The chilly standoff gave way to cold war." "Carthage promised to stay out of Italy if Rome kept out of Sicily." "But I get the feeling the Carthaginians didn't have a clue" "Who they were dealing with here" "It was a new elite controlling Rome, the nouveau riche, gorged on money and short on scruples" "Its hankering after Sicily's charms" "I see why at this superb archaeological site" "A Carthaginian settlement on the small island of Motya." "Off the west coast of Sicily" "Tthe community here was running a lucrative staging post." "For Carthaginian ships, circling the Mediterranean" "There were good reasons why Rome wanted Sicily so badly" "Rome was governed by fear" "Sicily was only a short hop away from mainland Italy" "But places like this..." "This dock at Motya." "Were fantastic, for making sure... the Carthaginian ships could be re-armed and restocked" "For a potential strike on the Italian mainland." "Another reason for Rome's aggression, was greed" "The businessmen turned politicians, who now controlled Rome" "Had originally made their fortunes, through trade in the southern Mediterranean" "And one of their best customers, had been Carthage." "Now, the thinking was, that if they controlled places such as this" "They would be able to flood North Africa, with their produce" "And so fear and greed, Rome's belligerent twins" "Took their first swipe at Carthage's empire." "264 years before Christ." "History calls it the first Punic War" "To me, it's more than just another ancient conflict" "It was unparalleled in its savagery, and it lasted 25 years" "But more than this." "It marked Rome's blood-soaked birth as an empire" "I'm now at the very waters where Roman and Carthaginian ships once fought." "In a war that irreversibly changed the balance of power in the Mediterranean" "The first Punic War was a real turning point for the Roman Empire" "Rome, traditional a land power, had at last found their sea legs" "It was a close run thing." "Just listen to this for a score card." "They lost 700 ships" "Compared with the Carthaginians 400" "And they lurched from disaster to catastrophe." "And one Roman admiral, frustrated with the sacred chickens" "That were meant to auger luck, but were off their feed." "tossed them overboard, saying..." ""Well if they are not hungry, perhaps they would like drink instead"" "He went on to preside over the biggest naval disaster that Rome ever suffered." "Losing the whole of his fleet." "But, in what must be one of the most bitter ironies in ancient history" "It was the Carthaginians" "Who inadvertently turned Rome, into a major sea power" "The course of the war was about to change" "By incredible luck" "A Carthaginian warship strayed into Roman waters" "Capturing the ship." "Rome now had an unbelievable opportunity" "To learn how to build the best battleship on the sea" "Roman boat-wrights immediately took it apart" "And discovered that every timber, was marked with a letter" "With lightning speed" "The Roman Navy copied the ship." "plank by plank, nail by nail" "Thanks to those instructions so helpfully left by the Carthaginians" "And in no time at all, Rome had built an identikit navy" "A staggering 220 ships, were built in 45 days" "Rome could now take on Carthage on equal terms." "If they could be beat Carthage at sea" "They would remove the sole obstacle, to exploiting the Mediterranean themselves" "The balance of power swung violently between Carthage and Rome for another 20 years" "Until ." "in 241 BC" "Carthage suffered a catastrophic defeat" "And was forced to hand over all of it's lands in Sicily" "Rome could now control the gateway to the western Mediterranean" "It could be policemen and tax collector" "Deciding who could come in and who could go out" "Rome had inflicted a crushing defeat on Carthage, in its own element... the sea" "Rome now had Carthage's Mediterranean empire in its sights" "Through one vicious war, Rome had promoted itself... to superpower" "This is a reconstruction of a column" "That was put up to celebrate the end of The First Punic War" "This inscription here, details the famous naval victory over the Carthaginians" "You have to understand that twenty years before" "Rome didn't really have a navy and now she had defeated Carthage" "The queen of the Mediterranean Sea" "And the Romans were immensely proud of this victory." "They had watched and they had learnt" "And then they had taken Carthage on, in her own backyard and they had won." "How those Romans must have enjoyed, watching the great superpower squirm" "They forced Carthage to pay the equivalent of, 10's of millions of dollars, in war indemnities" "To add insult to injury the Roman Navy seized Sardinia the following year" "And extorted another voluptuous payment from Carthage" "Then with unbridled greed." "Rome added new terms to the post-war treaty" "Arguing that the original ones were too lenient" "These harsh terms and humiliations, were felt keenly in Carthage" "That Rome, by breaking the terms of her own peace treaty" "Was storing up big trouble, for the future." "Carthage was a furnace of resentment, after its defeat by Rome" "They had kissed away a chunk of their empire, to a bunch of upstarts" "Now they were being leached with extortionate fines" "The young of Carthage hungered for revenge" "And out of this fug of hatred and humiliation" "Vengeance was slowly taking human form" "The young General, Hamilcar Barca was sent to southern Spain" "To try and revive Carthaginian fortunes and he hit pay dirt." "This earth which is now exhausted, after 2000 years of exploitation" "Was once bursting at the seams with mineral wealth" "Not least of all, silver..." "The bullion of the ancient world" "And with that..." "Carthage can now pay back its debts to Rome and launch a serious challenge to it's power" "First Hamilcar masterminded an extraordinary expansion in Spain" "Until Carthage commanded nearly all of the country" "Then he used this new wealth to redevelop the old Phoenician cities" "Like Cadiz, here in the South" "Wresting away the hub of Carthaginian power from the old guard in North Africa" "But if the great and the good of Carthage" "Thought that Hamilcar was going to bow to their will" "Then they were in for a shock." "This Carthaginian adventurer had his own agenda" "He built his own fine imperial capital" "And cheekily named it Carthage after the mother city" "With it's fine harbors, with it's royal palace and with it's temple of Eshmun" "This was Carthage in Spain" "Hamilcar and his heirs built up a belligerent rogue state" "That was itching for a fight with Rome." "And for the appeasers back in the old country." ""Costa-del-Carthage" was dangerously out of control" "Under the water in this valley, lies what is left of the vast Carthaginian mines" "That Hamilcar was exploiting to accumulate a war chest." "Big enough to pay for a serious attack on Rome" "He even drew his little son in to the vendetta" "And here we're in the territory of myth." "Overbearing father, dutiful son..." "The boy swears an oath of eternal hatred towards the enemy" "In front of the altars of the Gods" "And he never, ever forgets." "You need a back story like that for the most famous General in history" "This is not some schmuck in a flak jacket" "This, dear viewer..." "is Hannibal" "Now Hannibal was Rome's worst nightmare." "Here was a Carthaginian, who was a brilliant land General." "He cut-his-teeth here, in the hills of southern Spain campaigning against the tribes" "Now have a trick up his sleeve 21 elephants." "Now imagine... 3 tons of African elephant flesh, bearing down on you." "Full of Dutch courage, from the wine which they had been given to drink" "But things didn't always go to plan" "Sometimes these elephants, attacked their own troops" "For that, each of the drivers was issued with a metal spike" "To drive through the skull of the elephant." "To kill it in its tracks" "Now Hannibal just loved doing what his enemies least expected" "But his mercurial nature, was often more fatal for his own side... than it was for the Romans." "Only one solitary elephant survived the epic journey" "And he had to keep on stopping to recruit more troops, because of his own huge losses." "Now much is made of Hannibal's pathological hatred of Rome" "But I think that there were other, more vainglorious reasons for his behavior it's almost like he needed to attack his enemies." "That he was up for the challenge" "Rather than it being part of some grand military strategy" "Hannibal was a chancer." "But he was a successful chancer" "Spain, Gaul, Italy" "Final destination..." "Rome" "In 216 BC Hannibal and his army reached the very gates of Rome" "Now this was a momentous occasion" "Carthage was now within a stone's throw of capturing their great enemy" "But Hannibal never got the fight he had come for." "Which would surely have obliterated Rome" "And changed the course of European history" "The Roman generals, appealing to the glory complex that had driven Hannibal from Spain" "Removed their troops and enticed him away from the city with new battles elsewhere" "First they played a cat-and-mouse game with him, through the Italian countryside" "And then finally, they attacked the city of Carthage itself" "Forcing Hannibal to leave Italy to defend his African homeland" "Rome had been spared" "But Hannibal had taken the great capital to within an inch of its life" "We should never underestimate what a traumatic event this was for Rome" "But it's a trauma for which Carthage would pay for dearly" "When Hannibal sailedl back to Africa for the first time in 30 years" "I think he must been shocked and dismayed" "He found himself rejected by the very city, in whose name he had fought" "He had spent most of his life in Spain" "And his fellow Carthaginians distrusted him" "Instead of embracing him as a hero" "The city's elders shunned him as a foreigner." "They even tried to negotiate a secret peace treaty with Rome behind his back" "And in 202 BC, at Zama..." "The inevitable happened" "The legendary Hannibal, was comprehensively and soundly defeated by the Roman armies it was all over" "Carthage rewarded him for his pains with a brief stint in government" "But the exhausted General soon retired" "Roman hit men hunted Hannibal down." "But he cheated them of the symbolic triumph of an assassination" "By drinking poison" "Even after his suicide." "He lived on as a dark presence in the Roman imagination" "As a mythical demonic power." "Who could be drawn down for decades" "Whenever Rome needed an enemy." "Hannibal had taunted Rome with the specter of its own death" "And Rome could never forgive, nor forget" "Carthage was made to pay" "The pathetic remains of it's mighty navy, was set ablaze in sight of the city" "All its overseas territories were confiscated" "And it was handed a bill for billions of dollars, in today's money" "That had to be paid to Rome, over the next 50 years." "Carthage, had been resoundingly defeated" "What I find amazing is that ... this was not the moment that Rome chose to wipe Carthage off the face of the Earth" "That it would wait for more than forty years to raze Carthage to the ground" "When there was no longer a viable excuse" "But revenge for the Romans was a dish best served cold" "In the second and most keenly fought of the Punic wars" "Rome had once again triumphed." "Carthage appeared a broken power." "Yet it still kept limping on" "Now, one group of Roman politicians demanded Cartage's complete destruction" "Once and for all" "This is where it all happened." "The extraordinary Senate-House in Rome" "This is where Roman hawks and doves debated how to solve a problem like Carthage" "The Hawks were led by one of the most controversial figures of the Roman republic" "Cato..." "An extremist and xenophobe" "Who calibrated his own life, according to the exploits of the Carthaginians." "He wrote.." "I first enlisted in the army at 17," "When Hannibal was having his run of luck, setting Italy on fire" "Unlike many of senatorial colleagues, who would have sat with him on these benches here" "Cato can boast an aristocratic lineage" "Whenever the self-publicist." "Was keen for everyone to know." "what a modest lifestyle he had" "Working in the fields with his slaves." "And eating turnips for dinner." "Cato claimed that the lack of statues of him, anywhere in Rome" "Proved his extreme modesty" "Others put it down to his repulsive appearance." "Cato... this puritanical kill-joy" "Loved to rail against the luxurious living of his senatorial colleagues" "He had one senator dismissed for the heinous crime, of kissing his wife in public." "Cato reserved his most venomous hatred, for Carthage" "This veteran of the second Punic war" "Was adamant that Rome should destroy Carthage, when she had the chance" "Every one of his speeches ended with the deadly lines" ""Delenda est Carthago"" "Carthage must be destroyed" "For the time being," "Cato was just a malevolent shadow, on the fringes of Roman politics." "He had a powerful opponent." "The aristocrat Scipio Ascena, who led the anti-war faction." ""Carthage is the whetstone of our greatness"." "Scipio reminded his colleagues." ""It was the esteemed rival, that kept Rome sharp"" "Rome, he argued would fall into greed and complacency" "If it was become a sole superpower." "So the dove Scipio, welcomed a strong Carthage, to save Rome from itself" "There should have been peace," "But a miraculous renaissance in Carthage." "Had the Hawks on the warpath again," "Their economy was booming, 10 years after their most wretched defeat." "The Carthaginians had turned crisis into triumph" "They were able to pay off, all their war debts to Rome" "Forty years early" "In 153 BC the 81-year-old Cato, visited Carthage as part of a delegation and was appalled to see how wealthy the city had become again" "He even suspected that the Carthaginians were breaking the arms limitation treaties" "Made fifty years earlier." "This certainly wasn't the desired effect, of all those punitive treaties" "Imagine the sheer frustration of the man." "Carthage simply wouldn't die." "And for Cato, this dangerous rival now had to be snuffed out" "Once and for all" "Cold-shouldered in the senate, Cato made a play for the people with a charm offensive, to turn your stomach." "He pressed the flesh, staged public games" "Stoked Rome's greed for Carthage's wealth." "And manipulated the fear that had been a Roman habit" "Ever since Hannibal had shaken the mighty republic" "By it's neck" "And Cato finished off every speech" "With his malevolent jingle" ""Delenda est Carthgo"" "Carthage must be destroyed." "Cato gave the performance of his life, here on the rostra of the Senate" "As he unfurled his toga, out dropped ripe juicy figs" "Where do you think I got these from?" "He said" "They are from a vibrant and over prosperous Carthage, only 3 days sail away." "The debate was won" "Cato had managed to trump the enemy against whom he'd been agitating for the whole of his life" "From that moment on, Carthage was living on borrowed time" "Cato was now just looking for the excuse he needed to justify destroying it" "But Carthage... sensed the change in the wind over at Rome." "It was not over yet" "On this small island in Carthage, has been a wonderful discovery by the British archaeologist Henry Hurst" "This was a secret naval facility, for 180 Carthaginian warships" "This ramp that you can see here and many others." "Would have been all the way around the island" "Led all the way down to the water's edge" "And ships which needed to be re-armed and restocked" "Would have been dragged up." "into the center of the island" "So when was this marvel of maritime engineering, actually built?" "Well. the pottery that the archaeologists found on this site" "And underneath the structure itself" "Dated it to the end of the second Punic wars." "When Carthage had solemnly promised, to only maintain a fleet of just 10 warships." "So somebody wasn't playing by the rules" "It was only this narrow channel, which is now blocked by this modern road" "Connecting the military harbors over there, with the legitimate commercial harbors." "And the open sea..." "So they are well hidden from prying Roman eyes" "And not only that" "But on the island there was a tall tower" "From where they could keep watch for any visiting Roman weapons inspectors" "So bitter old Cato's hunch had been right." "Carthage defiant in defeat. was re-arming" "Two years after Cato's visit, in 151 BC" "A fiery young leader swept into office in Carthage" "His name was Hasdrubal" "Before long, Hasdrubal was fighting to defend Carthage" "From a neighboring kingdom's incursions." "But in doing this, he rashly broke the terms of a peace treaty" "With Rome." "The Romans now have the excuse they needed to wage war on Carthage." "Rome sent a massive army of 85,000 men" "To within striking distance" "And laid down an ultimatum." "That Carthage completely disarm" "Hasdrubal complied." "Then the Romans made an outrageous new demand" "That the Carthaginians abandon their capital and stay out of the Mediterranean forever." "Faced with extinction" "Carthage had no choice, but to stand and fight." "Cato's final gesture before he died" "Was to make sure that the man charged with the destruction of Carthage" "Was another member of the Scipio dynasty." "Scipio knew exactly what to do" "He throttled Carthage with siege" "In revenge Hasdrubal ordered that the eyes tongues and genitals of the Roman prisoners be torn out, with iron hooks. on the city walls" "The Carthaginians then flayed them alive and threw their raw, still breathing bodies, down to their comrades massed below" "The time had come" "For the Romans to act" "One fine spring day, Scipio's troops at last breached the gates of Carthage's harbor" "Scipio now ordered the final assault on the beseiged city and it's starving inhabitants" "But first rallied his troops with the following chilling words" ""All of you spread fear, flight and terror in this city of Carthage"" "In the following days," "His troops would follow his command, to the letter." "After capturing the lower city, Scipio now turned his attention to the ultimate prize" "The capital of Carthage, the Byrsa Hill." "Last refuge of the city's inhabitants" "Three streets led up the hill" "The houses that flanked them were closely packed together" "And up to six stories tall" "As the Roman troops advanced," "The Carthaginians mounted a desperate defence, hurling missiles down from the roof" "But Scipio, an experienced military man, knew how to counter such tactics" "He ordered that the houses be set ablaze," "But the passageways below be kept free of blazing material" "In this way the killing squads could carry on their work." "As more and more houses were set on fire" "Old men, women and children who had been hidden in these buildings" "Came down wth the blazing rubble" "Their charred and damaged bodies were brutally dragged out of the way, by the mattocks and hooks of the Roman cleansing squads." "Both the living and the dead were hurled into huge pits and others were crushed by the charging horses of the Roman cavalry" "Until their faces were no longer visibly human" "The city was consumed by this hellish turmoil, for six long days and nights" "Scipio. like any good killing squad commander, regularly rotated his troops" "Not only to conserve their physical strength," "But also their sanity." "On the seventh day, Scipio took himself off to a patch of high ground" "And looking down, calculated that the brutal conflict" "Would not be won for many days yet." "He turned out to be wrong" "For a group of Carthaginian elders defying their leader Hasdrubal" "Had taken matters into their own hands" "They begged Scipio to spare their lives" "He granted their request" "That very day, 50,000 men, women and children" "Passed through a narrow gate in the wall, into a life of grim slavery" "After watching his people deserting their beleaguered city in droves" "Hasdrubal's nerve finally broke." "He went to Scipio and grovelled for mercy" "This cowardice would not go unnoticed" "Or unpunished." "His wife had taken refuge from the flames On the roof of the Great Temple of Eshmun along with her children" "And as the flames flickered around her" "She poured scorn on the treacherous Hasdrubal" "Looking down on her cowering husband." "She delivered a savage rebuke" ""Wretch, traitor." "A most effeminate of men." "This fire would entomb me and my children But what of you, Oh great commander of Carthage?" "... ...What punishments will be inflicted upon you, by the man at whose feet you are sitting?"" "What Roman triumph would you grace?"" "With these words, she killed her children and threw them into the fire" "And then plunged in after them." "Carthage was dead" "In the shocking aftermath of this murderous episode" "The charred ruins of Carthage, were systematically dismantled" "Thousands of Roman troops, spent a whole year carrying out Cato's words" "To the letter" "In the modern world" "Hiroshima and Nagasaki could be wiped out in the morning at the touch of a button" "But in the ancient world destroying a city, meant getting your hands seriously dirty." "So why did Rome do it?" "In the end." "I think it was cold blooded pragmatism" "That sealed Carthage's fate" "Rome understood that it could only become a global superpower" "By eradicating its most talented opponents." "Astonishingly, in the same year" "Rome did exactly the same thing to the great Greek city of Corinth." "They did it once, they did it twice." "There was no need to do it a third time" "This was no object lesson in Rome's absolute power" "The cold-blooded obliteration" "Of two of the greatest cities in the Mediterranean world" "Sent out a clear message." "Imperial Rome had arrived" "Things would certainly never be the same for the Mediterranean world again." "Everything would now be run according to a grand imperial plan" "And the mediterranean would become Rome's supermarket" "When they first fought, Carthage had been queen of the Mediterranean" "Just over 100 years later." "Rome was referring to the Mediterranean as" "Mare Nostrum" "Our Sea" "This is what it was all about" "This Roman shipwreck, which is now in the Museum in Cadiz" "Gives a wonderful snapshot" "Of the riches now available to Rome after the defeat of Carthage" "This ship groaned under the weight of the natural produce of the Mediterranean Basin" "We have ingots from the lead mines of Spain and these amphorae would have been filled to the brim with wine. olives, oil and wheat" "These were the real spoils of the Punic wars the Roman soldiers who had annihilated Carthage" "Returned home for their victory procession through the heart of Rome" "At the same spot where italians parade today" "They had a shock in store" "It wasn't only the Carthaginians who found themselves on the losing side of the Punic wars" "What did the peasent farmers who make up the backbone of the victorious Roman armies" "Gain from twenty years of grinding military conflict" "The glittering triumph." "In which they had marched through the streets of Rome" "With garlands of flowers and cheering crowds" "Had made them believe the better future was theirs" "However they were soon to realize, that they had been sold down the river." "The senators of Rome, had no intention of sharing out the spoils, of the Punic wars" "They had even stolen the soldiers land." "Whilst they were away fighting" "As the aristocracy grew fat on the profits." "A new under-class was born" "Dependent on handouts and free bread" "The veterans own land was used to grow the wheat to feed them." "Slabs of carbohydrate, to keep them tame" "Later, leisure complexes were built like the Coliseum" "To keep the masses entertained" "In the end Their reward for life fighting Carthage" "Was a cut-price seat to a human cock-fight." "Bread and circuses for the masses, was not all it had been cracked-up to be" "For 150 years, the history of these two rival empires" "Rome and Carthage was conjoined." "For richer and for poorer." "In cold-war and in hot" "For Rome war with Carthage had been a blood-soaked tutelage." "Rome was pushed to the limits by Carthage" "As friction became war and war, Armageddon" "Without Carthage." "Rome would never have sharpened itself into a superpower" "But it had not finished with Carthage yet" "In defeat Carthage would be more useful to Rome than ever" "You are looking at one of the most brutal acts of obliteration in the classical world" "Below the suburbs of modern-day Tunis, on the coast of North Africa" "Lies one of history's most infamous pieces, of scorched earth." "Carthage." "This was a city that ceased to exist." "It's a testament to Rome's chilling efficiency, that so little remains" "All that are left are the fragments of a sinister people" "I want to explore the real-life of Carthage" "According to the Romans" "It was an incredibly dark world of Oriental strangeness" "And barbaric sacrifice" "The foreigners from a far-off continent with weird beliefs and perverted practices" "But how much what we know about Carthage is true." "And how much of it is just the black propaganda of the Romans" "I want to peel away the layers of myth" "And discover the truth about the Carthaginians" "And most important of all." "Why did Rome have, what it took to rule the world" "Whilst Carthage was crushed into oblivion" "For 100 years Carthage would remain a cursed wasteland" "The scene of total devastation" "Bbut that's not the end of the story" "Carthage would be brought back from the dead" "And who by?" "None other than its bitterest enemy" "Rome" "This resurrection wasn't an act of atonement" "But a supreme act of empire building" "Which marked not just the death of one superpower" "But the unrivalled supremacy of another" "Carthage hadn't just been Rome's only serious rival" "In death it had taught Rome the secrets of empire." "Without Carthage," "Rome would never have become the global power that it did." "On the corpse of its dead enemy The Romans built a new Carthage" "Nothing of the old Punic city remained" "Even the land itself had to be completely transformed." "Like many ancient cities, Carthage was centered around a hill" "Called The Bysra" "It gave them a wonderful defensive panorama" "They could look out to sea and they could look out at the African Hinterlands too" "When the Romans came, they hacked away the whole summit of the hill" "And created a completely flat area of over six hectres" "And then, they constructed a massive concrete platform" "And built their own city on top of it" "And this would be the second largest city in the whole of the Mediterranean world" "The Romans was symbolically removing, every last trace of the old Carthage" "It was a potent way to tell the world." "We are your masters now" "The new Carthage, will be the capital of Roman Africa" "Its name says it all, the colony of Concord." "This city, was supposed to be a public act of peace" "Rome ruled the world, but with reconciliation in its heart" "If you're gullible enough to believe it" "After the summit of the hill have been leveled" "The hundreds of thousands of tons of earth and rubble" "Was shoved down the hill." "enveloping these Punic houses below" "How ironic that this symbol of the reconciliation, between Carthage and Rome." "Should bring about the further eradication of the Punic past." "This was reconciliation Roman style." "Victory over Carthage helped pave the way for Rome's great step forward" "Rome had been a republic for nearly 500 years" "But in 31 BC." "All power lay, in the hands of one man" "Not a senator, not a general" "But an emperor." "Augustus." "He created a new Rome, as the capital of their new world" "Augustus was determined to construct a capital worthy of an emperor" "It was said that, "He found Rome built in brick and left it in marble"" "A part about of the Augustine legacy still stands today" "The Pantheon." "Built by his right hand man Marcus Agrippa" "As a temple for all the gods of Rome." "It exudes a sleek muscular authority" "This was a building fit for a city, that was taking on the headship of the world." "Under Augustus, Rome's history was rewritten" "He commissioned Virgil." "Rome's greatest poet" "To create a spectacular myth, that glorified Rome called The Aeneid." "The reason I find it so interesting," "Is that. in it, Carthage's history is rewritten too" "But with a new Roman spin" "From now on, Carthage would be seen through the distorting eyes of their old enemy" "At the poem's heart, is a tragic love story" "The tale recounts the epic adventures of a Trojan prince called Aeneas" "Who sets sail guided by the gods, to found the Roman people" "So Aeneas is shipwrecked on the North African coast and here he meets Dido, an exiled Queen from Tyre" "Which is in modern-day Lebanon" "And she's building a brand new city, Carthage." "Now you can probably guess the next bit" "The future founders of the Roman and Carthaginian peoples" "Embark on a passionate affair." "Then Aeneas turns his back on his desperate lover" "Amd goes off to Italy to fulfill his destiny" "Dido is left with nothing" "But a ghastly suicide and an operatic vow." "After stabbing herself with her lover's sword and throwing herself on to the funeral pyre" "Her last words to her people, ring out across the ocean" ""Beseige his progeny with hate and all his people that come after him" "Let there be no love and no pact between our peoples" "Let this be your offering to my ashes"" "So the stage is beautifully set now." "For the everlasting enmity between these two cities and the eventual eradication" "Of Carthage herself." "The centuries-old rivalry between these two cities" "Would become nothing more than the bitter legacy of a spurned lover" "This was political myth making on an epic scale" "The sheer nerve of it," "After 150 years of bitter war." "What's Carthage reduced to?" "Nothing more than a rejected woman crying for her Roman lover" "But I think it went deeper than that" "In this epic poem lay the seeds of one of history's most powerful smear campaigns" "Its continued right up to the present day" "Carthage has been branded as foreign, decadent, perverted, cruel  treacherous" "It's a tainted image, that has been passed down through generations" "It's the image that the Romans wanted us to have" "Rome was the world's most powerful state." "It didn't just win wars" "It also knew how to win hearts and minds" "It was the Romans who perfected the black arts of vilification and propaganda" "Nobody did it better." "They set about one of the most concerted smear campaigns in history" "Painting the Carthaginians as everything, the Romans were not." "Nevermind the fact that the Carthaginians made their home in the western Mediterranean for nearly eight hundred years" "Once Rome's poison pens are finished their work" "Carthage had been transformed into a culture of alien, oriental, intruders" "With no business sharing their world." "Take for instance their language Punic" "In theatres like this, found right across the empire the Romans perform plays that delighted in ridiculing the Carthaginians" "In one play, there's a scene full of what looks like Punic dialogue" "And what do we find?" "the Carthaginians speak gobbledy-gook" "Which no self-respecting Roman or Greek could possibly understand" "Modern scholars spent years trying to decipher it" "Unfortunately it literally was gobbledy-gook" "This wasn't Punic at all." "It was a made-up language" "To make the Carthaginians look as ridiculous as possible" "Just listen to this" "#@$!" "%" "What does that mean" "Absolutely nothing" "This is more than just a good-natured gag" "This was a conscious effort to marginalize and misrepresent the Carthaginians" "As being nothing more than oriental interlopers" "A people who had no right to call this their home" "Now remember we are talking about the Carthaginians" "A people who had ruled the western Mediterranean for eight hundred years" "At a time when Rome was nothing more than hicksville on the Tiber." "The Roman spin-doctors did their job so well that" "The phrase Punic or Carthaginian faith, Actually came to mean treacherous behavior" "So the very word Punic became an insult" "No wonder the Greek historian Diodorus, writing for a Roman audience" "Knew exactly what his readership wanted" "Just when you thought the Carthaginians couldn't be any worse" "He hit them with this" "They even incinerate their own children alive." "To placate the blackest of gods." "He wrote," "There was in their city a bronze image of Kronos" "Extending its hands, palms up and sloping towards the ground." "So that each of the children when placed there, rolled down and fell into a gaping pitl filled with fire." "Roman slurs, like so much of what they built, have lasted for millennia" "Diodorus' horror story set the tone" "For hundreds of years of future visitors" "Especially those drawn to North Africa" "In search of exactly this kind of lurid tale." "in 1857." "One of France's greatest writers" "Gustave Flaubert arrived in Tunisia" "Inspired by the tales of ancient Carthage his novel Salammbo was born" "It's a great read" "But it also reinforced the image of the Carthaginians as being sexually perverted, religious extremists" "In graphic detail." "Flaubert describes" "How screaming children were dragged by their parents to the great statue of the god" "Where they were burnt alive" "Except that Flaubert lived and worked here in this house" "Overlooking the Punic ports" "Rght here in the heart of ancient Carthage" "The perfect place, to let your imagination run riot." "Sixty years later." "Just around the corner from here" "Archaeologists made a series of chilling discoveries" "Which seemed to give credence to his most sinister ideas." "20,000 of these simple terracotta urns, have been found here in Carthage." "Even now, I find the contents incredibly moving... and unsettling" "Inside, were miniature pieces of jewelry" "The charred bones of animals and birds" "And the burnt remains." "of young children and babies" "Was it more than just a case of fevered imagination" "Could Flaubert and Diodorus before him, have actually been right?" "Was this the sacrificial site" "Where the Carthaginian gods were appeased with the blood of children?" "These urns were found with hundreds of engraved stone dedications" "Called Stele." "Archaeologists called this place the Tophet." "Now the Tophet was a sacred precinct dedicated to two main gods" "One of them was Tanit, and this is her sign here." "It;s an abstract figure of a woman with her arms outstretched" "And the other was Baal Hamon, the chief god of Carthage." "And here's his sign..." "and we find this everywhere" "This is the crescent moon, and underneath it the Sun" "Some people think he was also the god of fire" "Which fits perfectly with the idea of babies being incinerated here" "Scientific research has shown, that many of the urns which contain human remains" "Came from the 4th century" "So what happened then, that could provoked an infant holocaust?" "Well an invasion by a Sicilian Greek army" "And an attempted coup d'etat by one of Carthage's own Generals" "Had throwm the city into turmoil" "And in a panic response according to Diodorus" "500 children from aristocratic families" "Were incinerated alive." "To appease Carthage's bloodthirsty gods." "Some of the engraving on this stele" "Also suggests something sinister was happening here" "This is a priest," "His right hand is raised in supplication and in his left hand he is cradling a swaddled infant" "Was this baby being offered as a sacrificial victim?" "To many historians and archaeologists" "Tthis evidence is convincing" "Diodorus was right" "The Carthaginians in times of crisis, did sacrifice their children" "To their gods" "It's so easy to condemn the Carthaginians as barbaric baby killers" "But the evidence just isn't as neat, as the gruesome tales would have us believe" "How much is sensationalized myth?" "Provoked by the desire for a lurid tale." "The graphic account of child sacrifice... and the grim reality of thousands of Stele urns." "Containing the burnt bones of children." "Appear to provide compelling evidence for this macabre rite." "But a closer look at the archaeology." "Has revealed precious little proof that this was a site" "Where generations of young children were burnt alive" "So, if the Carthaginians were really sacrificing their own children" "Then it seems odd that amongst all these stele around me here" "There is not one direct reference to child sacrifice" "So was this a sinister dark secret?" "Was it a rite that invokes so much shame" "That the very people that were practicing it." "Were cowered into a conspiracy of silence?" "On some of the Stele, there are these figures of people and on others what appeared to be an urns." "But does that really provide compelling evidence for child sacrifice?" "It wasn't only the Carthaginians who were leaving dedications here" "A Greek man called Adresdros also left a stele" "So are the Greeks sacrificing their children too?" "What of the Tophet itself?" "This place where countless guides have spooked tourists with stories of the slaughter of innocent children" "Is in fact a vault built by the Romans" "So this rather sinister enviroment" "Is a very false one." "These regimented lines of stele, would never have looked like this" "The brutal truth is that archaeologists have completely reconstructed the site" "Even the name the Tophet, has been made up by modern scholars" "Other so-called Tophets" "Have been found throughout the Carthaginian empire." "Not only in Africa, but even in Europe" "Not all the Tophets were dark, forbidding, tampered with places." "Like the one in Carthage." "Here in Sant'Antioco in Sardinia there's a Tophet which is very different" "Not least, because it hasn'tbeen ransacked by archaeologists" "Okay many of these urns are replicas." "But the archaeologists that unearthed them" "Have put them back in exactly the same positions that they were found" "And some of them are original" "Well the guide suggests that it was here that babies were set down ready for sacrifice and that their innocent young blood would flow down this channel." "into the pool below." "But evidence?" "There is none." "But there is something here, that will really disturb you the Mistral, a wind which blows in from the northwest here" "Combines with these rocks, to create a kind of natural bellows" "And this was capable of creating a fire of intense heat" "And sure enough, down here." "Archaeologists found a pile of ash" "Full of burnt babies' bones." "And a tiny button for an infant;s garment." "The ash also contained the remains of herbs, such as rosemary and lavender" "Capable of masking any pungent smell." "like buring flesh." "Those who continue to believe the old story" "That the Carthaginians murdered their own children" "Seize on this as evidence that it's true" "But I just don't believe it" "There is a much simpler and more convincing explanation" "For what has been found in the Carthaginian Tophets" "A vital piece of evidence" "Lies here in the Palermo museum." "In Sicily" "This simple stone coffin which contains the body of a little girl" "Is a real rarity" "Because archaeologists have found very few infant burials from the Carthaginian period" "And this simply doesn't stack up." "Because we know that infant mortality rates were extremely high in antiquity 4 out of 10 children didn't make it through to their second birthday" "So where are the children?" "Where are they buried?" "Well there is one place where we know there are lots of dead babies and that's the Tophet." "I believe that these children, when they died were cremated." "and then placed within that sanctuary" "In other words" "The Tophet was the children's cemetery." "Not some sacrificial ground" "For places that are associated with death" "The Tophet strikes me as being about the cycle life" "I don't believe that these people sacrificed their children" "I think they were cremated after their natural deaths." "This was a community that understood the preciousness of life" "There's a frugality here" "Infants who have died, were given back to where they had come from" "In hope that new life would spring forth, stronger and better able to survive" "The fact that even today the myths still lingers so powerfully." "Tells us how well the Roman hate campaign did its job." "The problem is we know so much about the myths, but precious little about the reality." "Underneath the layers of demonization" "Who were these people?" "What did they achieve?" "The answer lies with the conquerors Rome." "Thet built an even greater empire than Carthage's" "And what better way to do it" "Than by stealing those secrets of Carthaginian greatness and passing them off as their own" "When Rome destroyed Carthage." "It tried to rub out every last trace of their old rivals" "In Romes brand new version of history" "They naturally omitted the fact that the most powerful enemy." "Had provided them with the template for the Roman empire" "But with the little detective work you can follow an amazing trail across Europe and Africa" "That reveals fragments of Carthage's once great empire" "They give a tantalizing glimpse of who the Carthaginians actually were" "They had colonized huge amounts of land" "They were the undisputed superpower of the Western Mediterranean" "Barely any settlements have survived" "But one has slipped through the net" "Kerkouane on the north coast of Tunisia" "This small Carthaginian town had its heyday in the 3rd century BC" "A backwater who's obscurity spared it the attention of the Romans" "It's an archaeologist's dream" "I love this place the picture it paints, of what the Carthaginian world must have been like" "These were Carthaginians enjoying the good life and their houses would have impressed any estate agent" "Archaeologists have called this house number 23 Sphinx Street." "and here is the courtyard" "The central area of the house." "With its very own fresh water supply leading off it, we have a kitchen" "Very very compact, but with all the latest mod-cons" "Including... a bread oven" "And now we come to this marvellous suite of rooms" "Perfect not only for entertaining guests but also just for relaxing with the family." "No shortage of storage space you'll see, with these inbuilt cupboards" "And also look at this" "These were laid by the previous owners" "Practical, because they are waterproof and easy to clean" "Also beautiful, look at the delicate marble inlay" "And now for the piece-de-resistance" "This private bathroom with ample changing area and this fantastic hip-bath" "Replete with seat and arm-rests and a basin" "Just lie back and luxuriate in the hot water" "This house was not unique most houses in Kerkouane had their own private bathroom and complex plumbing systems" "All this 2000 years before anywhere in Northern Europe" "Would come close to equalling this level of practical luxury" "And this is a backwater..." "a nowhere" "Can you imagine what Carthage itself looked like" "Sophisticated towns like this dotted the Mediterranean" "But where did all the money come from, that paid for this fine living" "The answer lies in the soil" "Iit's easy to appreciate the brilliance of a civilization" "When you look at intricately carved sculpture, glittering jewels and brightly burnished gold" "But the fields of North Africa" "Were Carthage's real treasures" "The humble olive, the fuel of the ancient world" "Not only were they a wonderful source of nutrition" "But their oil filled the lamps which lit millions of homes" "Now the Carthaginians planted thousands upon thousands of olive groves right across North Africa" "These weren't just for domestic consumption" "They were also to be exported and converted into hard ready cash." "the olive was a mainstay of the Carthaginian economy" "They were unique" "Olives and their precious oil could be cooked, eaten and provided light" "They were grown on an ernomous scale" "And shipped across the Mediterranean" "Carthage had coupled the secret to their farming" "With a superb trading network and the money poured in" "The sea was the hub of their empire" "Their ports were placed strategically from east to west" "Giving them a foothold in every land" "They were the first people to see the enormous possibilities" "Of a joined-up Mediterranean" "For centuries the Carthaginian fleets" "Had the western Mediterranean sewn up" "Even when the market was closed to their goods they still found a way in" "The wine market was dominated by the Greeks" "Who had a firm stranglehold over it" "So the answer for the Carthaginians, was a canny bit of marketing" "These two fragments of Carthaginian flasks" "They were once filled with wine" "The inscriptions read Myton and Ares" "Typical Carthaginian names" "But unusually both the written in the Greeks script and in Greek style" "This confused archaeologists until they realized what the Carthaginian's game was" "They were replacing a telltale spidery Punic script" "For Greek" "Why are they doing that?" "Because Greek wine was considered to be the Bordeaux of the ancient world" "It was a real mark of quality very clever" "By the 3rd century BC" "Carthaginian wine was being drunk all over the Mediterranean" "Even in Athens" "Here in Sunuraxi in Sardinia" "The Carthaginians use their trade" "To overwhelm the local people" "from 1800 BC" "The island was dominated by a mysterious people called the Nuraghe" "the metal artifacts from the settlements they had left behind" "Hint at this being a very sophisticated civilization" "But when the Carthaginians arrived in the 6th century BC the Nuraghe way of life would be changed completely" "Carthaginian imperialism in Sardinia" "Rarely came in the form of fire and slaughter" "Instead, what we find is an influx of Carthaginian goods" "Bells, coin's and smooth painted pottery and at the same time the disappearance of Nuraghic artefacts" "This was conquest by shopping" "But as even the most benevolent of trading empires discovers" "Ocasionally the gloves do have to come off" "Monte Sirai in the heart of Sardinia" "A tactical location that controlled the wealth of the region mines, farming, sea and trade" "The perfect position to dominate the land" "Carthaginians were not the first people, to recognize the potential of this site" "The Nuraghe and the Phoenicians had been here first" "But Monte Sirai was a site that was worth fighting for" "Amd that's exactly what the Carthaginians did" "When archaeologists first came to excavate here" "They found great swaves of ash" "The remains of a destroyed Phoenician village" "And the most likely culprits..." "the Carthaginians" "it wasn't only in life but death too... that the Carthaginians imposed their will upon Sardinia" "Another addition the Carthaginians brought to the Sardinian landscape" "Were these impressive underground tombs." "the Phoenicians before them had cremated their dead" "The Carthaginians made a point of burying theirs" "The bones would have been kept in these niches here" "With each new burial" "The old bones have been swept down onto the floor" "Very practical arrangements" "But I think this goes deeper, than any passing fashions in funeral arrangements" "What better way for newcomers to put down roots to tell the world, that this will be their home for generations" "These tombs proclaim we're here to stay" "Us and our ancestors" "They laid down the foundations of their culture" "And left this their most potent hallmark" "The sign of Tanit" "I think that this shows a spiritual people" "Who brought religion into all aspects of their lives" "Wherever I have been in the old Carthaginian world" "Spain, Sicily, Sardinia and North Africa" "I've seen this sign" "It's easily replicated" "A clear, simple Carthaginian icon" "Almost like the crucifix for Christians" "It's the clearest sign that much of Southern Europe was once Carthaginian" "Tanit herself remains elusive" "One clue may lie here on these magnificent tombs" "Once covered in glorious colors" "This woman may even represent Tanit herself" "Her cloak is folded like the wings of a bird" "In her hands she carries an incense pot and a dove" "The symbolism remains a mystery" "But the fine work is a testament to the strengthen of their devotion" "Carthage could afford to spend money on this kind of gesture" "Their empire spanned the Mediterranean Sea" "And reaped huge profits" "This was too much of a temptation for a greedy Rome" "When Cato urged Rome to destroy its rivals he was driven by more than a genocidal hatred" "As much as anything this was a business decision" "Rome wants to be a monopoly they wanted what Carthage had" "So before they destroyed Carthage, they stripped it bare" "Not just of treasure, but of ideas" "Especially those ideas, that spoke about empire" "The greatest value were the works of Mago Carthage's agricultural genius" "His advice was so good, that even today over two thousand years later," "The olive groves of Tunisia, are still grown to his specifications" "Rome was careful to make sure that Carthage never received the credit for her agricultural brilliance" "When they torched that amazing metropolis they made sure that they saved Mago's precious works from the flames" "They were then carefully translated into Latin" "And then equally carefully plagiarized by Roman authors" "That financial powerhouse that was Rome." "Was built on the agricultural know-how of Carthage" "With Mago's handbooks" "Roman farmers could churn out olive oil, wine, and grain..." "But they would do so the Roman way, on an industrial scale" "Amid the savage destruction of Carthage" "Rome's calculated decision to preserve Mago's work" "Provided them with the keys, to unlock the wealth of the Mediterranean" "When Rome finally defeated Carthage after 150 years of war" "It simply opened its jaws wide and swallowed its rival empire whole." "But the new Roman Empire would be different" "The whole of the Mediterranean would be reshaped to fit Rome's voracious appetite" "The landscape was transformed" "Parcelled up into huge estates" "Tunisia, Carthage's Garden of Eden was turned into one crop province" "And that crop was wheat" "To make the bread that could feed Rome for eight months a year" "The rest the Carthaginian empire was rearranged like the shelves of a supermarket" "Sardinia for vines, Spain for olives, Sicily for grain." "Carthage had supplied Rome with the blueprint for its brand new empire" "But Rome the brazen plagiarist would find its most important lessons" "Would be from Carthage's mistakes" "When the Romans destroyed Carthage they didn't just help themselves to useful know-how about olives and shipbuilding" "They took the whole idea of empire and Romanized it" "They stole the secrets to Carthage's success" "But just as importantly, they learnt from Carthage's failures" "For the next 600 years their empire didn't just rival Carthage's" "It surpassed it" "Carhage's flaws would be their last and most important gift" "To its Roman conquerors" "The Romans learnt the art of making people feel Roman." "Even if they were on the far-flung corners of the Empire" "It was an empire that was forged on violence." "But sustained by subtler forces." "By the ties that bind" "In Carthaginian towns, those ties just aren't evident" "This is a really typical street in Kerkouane,." "Broad and flanked by row upon row of terraced houses" "What really surprises me about this place, is the lack of public space" "Sure here you have a large public square, where people could have mixed and mingled" "But that's about it" "And is it just because Kerkouane was a small insignificant place?" "Well archaeologists working in Carthage, haven't found any public spaces either" "Its extraordinary, that from such a vast civilization" "Not a single great monument survives" "Nothing that says, this is Carthage" "It's not just magnificent palaces and glittering temples, that tell you about a people" "It's the mundane and humdrum everyday life." "Like how people wash." "What's clear. is the Carthaginians were doing things as individuals" "That Romans were doing as a group" "100 kilometers south of Carthage in the heart of North Africa" "Is the spectacular Roman town of Dougga" "It is Roman through-amd-through" "Identical to thousands of others." "they built from Carlisle to Mesopotamia" "It was at its peak in the 2nd century AD the lessons that Rome learnt are abundantly clear" "At its heart." "Three of the great institutions of Roman life" "The temple, the theater and the baths.." "Even if Dougga was just a small country town" "It still had a wonderful bathing complex for its inhabitants to enjoy" "This wasn't just a matter of a quick scrub" "They had hot rooms, where you could sweat out and scrape off the grime of the day" "Cool plunge pools to reinvigorate the senses" "These baths were real hive of social activity" "You come here and listen to the gossip... about who had been ripping off the Imperial tax inspectors" "You might even come here and complain about your neighbor, who you suspected had stolen your best donkey." "What was more..." "the baths were a real equalizer" "Because once you got your kit off..." "Nobody knew whether you were rich or poor." "You came to bath houses a Gaul or Assyrian" "But you entered the water, a Roman" "Dougga is full of places like this" "Places that bring people together" "And make them feel like they're part of something greater than just their immediate families" "One of the most powerful forces in the ancient world was religion" "But the Romans had an answer for that too" "Instead of fighting it, they simply absorbed it" "Foreign gods became Roman gods" "A Latin inscription here in Dougga, records how a group of local dignitaries built a temple to the goddess Dea Caelestis on behalf of the Emperor Septimius Severus" "Nothing strange in that you might say" "Roman people, building a temple to a Roman goddess on behalf of a Roman emperor" "But there's more to this than meets the eye" "These local worthies were probably the descendants of the Punic and African men who had once lived in the city before the Roman conquest" "Dea Caelestis was the Roman name for Tanit" "One of the most important of the Carthaginian deities and Septimius Severus was not born in Rome but in North Africa" "So here we have African people, worshipping an African goddess and dedicating their temple, to an African Emperor all in the name of Rome" "the Carthaginians could never inspire that sense of belonging" "Here in Motya Sicily, they paid the price for their failings" "They could never win the hearts and minds of their allies" "They couldn't even rely on loyalty from the Phoenicians." "A people who had come from the same stock" "And were so similar to the Carthaginians." "that they thought themselves cousins" "They even called upon Carthage." "To help defend them, from marauding Greeks" "The Carthaginian army, was soundly beaten by the Greeks" "But then it became clear" "Tthe Phoenicians, their so-called allies had betrayed them" "Archaeologists working at Motya," "Have been able to confirm, that the Carthaginian defeat was not just the product of the Greek military might" "While the Carthaginian armies were sweating their guts out, on the hot Sicilian plains" "Their allies from the Poenician colonies here" "Were busy making fat profits, trading with Carthage's enemy the Greeks" "What made it worse was the actual level of trade. had increased considerably during is period of conflict" "And also." "Archaeologists who have been excavating some of the Greek cities over here" "Have found that the Phoenicians, were also dealing arms too" "Who needed enemies, when you had friends like these" "The brutal truth..." "Was that for many of the Phoenician cities in Sicily the Carthaginians were just another bunch of outsiders" "Interfering in their affairs and after alll business was business" "Much better to maintain cordial trade relations with the Greek cities some of them only 20 miles away" "Rather than to bother too much with Carthage, over 200 miles across the sea" "Carthage's allies were fair-weather friends" "Their empire was based on trade, and it's people were kept happy, with a ready flow of cash" "But in hard times the Carthaginians found themselves very alone" "Even at the final battle of Zama" "Where Hannibal was fighting against the invading Roman armies" "To save Carthage itself." "Who was his army made up of?" "Mercenaries..." "People whose loyalty lasted only as long as their pay packets did" "Compare this with Rome," "Where it is calculated that around a quarter of their soldiers died fighting in the second Punic War for the Roman cause" "What happened to the many Carthaginians, who hadn't been slaughtered by Rome's legions" "How did Rome deal with them?" "Simple" "It turned them into Romans" "Don't kill them, just assimilate them" "The end result is the same" "Carthage vanishes" "This is the funerary monument from Sicily, from the Roman period." "The man is wearing his toga and laurel garland at a dinner party." "Basically having a good time with good food, wine, women and song." "In every way a very typical Roman scene" "Or so you might think..." "But if you look carefully, at some of the other decoration" "You will see a very familiar symbol indeed" "The sign of Tanit." "Even the people who had once been Rome's bitterest enemies had become Roman" "In the modern Western world" "We fall over ourselves to acknowledge the debt, that we owe to the Greeks and to the Roman's" "In contrast, the Carthaginians have been depicted as lying, cowardly baby killers" "As all the bad things, that Rome was not" "So much fear did they inspire in the Romans, that they paid the ultimate price" "The total obliteration of their city and people" "Rome's savage active vandalism ensured that their true achievements were wiped out" "Not only physically, but also from history" "All that we are left with, is a version of history the Romans wanted us to believe." "I think that the Carthaginians made an enormous impact on the ancient world." "They provided Rome with many of it's best ideas." "They gave them the blueprint for a Mediterranean empire" "The truth, Carthage was not Rome's opposite,." "But its forerunner and teacher." "The worthy enemy who took Rome to the brink" "And taught them how to become great"