History of Money, Banking, and Trade
A historical look at the development and evolution of money, banking, and trade. From the ancient civilizations to the present.
History of Money, Banking, and Trade
Episode 37. Sea Power vs Land Power: Why Rome Had to Destroy Carthage
The epic saga of Carthage's struggle with Rome reveals how economic systems, political ideologies, and military strategies shaped the ancient Mediterranean. From Hannibal's audacious crossing of the Alps to the final razing of a once-great maritime power, this narrative illuminates the clash between fundamentally different civilizations.
Hannibal Barca's military genius stands at the center of this story. Starting with approximately 60,000 soldiers from Spain, he navigated treacherous Alpine passes to bring the fight directly to Roman territory—a move so bold it still captivates military historians. Though his forces dwindled to roughly 25,000 by the time he reached northern Italy, Hannibal's tactical brilliance soon proved devastating. At Cannae in 216 BCE, he orchestrated one of history's most complete military victories, encircling and destroying a Roman force nearly three times his size and killing some 50,000 legionnaires.
What makes this conflict so fascinating is the strategic puzzle at its heart: Why didn't Hannibal march on Rome itself after such decisive victories? This question has provoked centuries of debate. Was it his greatest blunder or a recognition of Rome's formidable defenses? Meanwhile, Rome adapted brilliantly, avoiding direct confrontation while striking at Carthaginian Spain under Scipio Africanus, eventually forcing a decisive battle at Zama where Hannibal finally tasted defeat.
The aftermath reveals equally compelling dynamics. Despite crushing war reparations, Carthage experienced an extraordinary economic recovery through maritime trade. This prosperity ultimately proved their undoing, as Rome—shocked by their rival's resilience—manufactured pretexts for a final war. The destruction of both Carthage and Corinth in 146 BCE reveals Rome's deeper motives: eliminating democratic, trade-focused societies that threatened oligarchic control and land-based power structures.
Discover how this clash between sea power and land power, between trade networks and territorial conquest, continues to echo through history and shapes our world today. The Mediterranean's first superpower confrontation offers timeless lessons about empire, economy, and the true costs of victory.
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Welcome podcast listener. I am Mike D. This is the History of Money, banking and Trade podcast. My goal is to expand your knowledge of the history and evolution of trade, along with money, banking and credits, from ancient civilizations to present-day market innovations. I truly hope you find these episodes to be informative and entertaining. I have an MBA and around 20 years working in various financial roles, but I am not a historian. However, I find that if I study the history of financial changes, modern trade and complex finance, is much easier to understand the extraordinary transformation of Carthage from a modest Phoenician colony to a Mediterranean.
Speaker 1:You said that the new city, or Carthage as it is known today, would become an international maritime power. The founders probably would have thought you had too much wine to drink. After all, the settlement was founded in large part by traders seeking a sanctuary from Assyrian control. Unexpectedly, these descendants of Phoenician traders, who avoided conflict as much as they possibly could, found itself in centuries of warfare. Following their defeat in the First Punic War and the subsequent Mercenary War crisis, hamilcar Barca brilliantly pivoted from a sea power to a land power as he rebuilt Carthage's fortunes in southern Spain. Because Carthage's navy was utterly destroyed by Rome. The new Cadena Black. The buildup in southern Spain meant that they could access the rich silver mines and the abundant manpower and thereby transform their economy and military capabilities, setting the stage for Hannibal's famous confrontation with Rome.
Speaker 1:Now, when Hannibal set out for Italy, he had to first try and subdue the local tribes along the way to the Alps. He also had to try and pick up as many allies as possible, because there was absolutely going to be attrition along the way. So he had to know that he needed to find a way to replace soldiers that were going to be lost, whether it was sickness, death or desertion. It appears that he started the trip with around 60,000 soldiers from Spain to Italy, that he started the trip with around 60,000 soldiers from Spain to Italy. However, he couldn't bring all those troops from Spain because he had no choice but to leave some men back in Spain, because he knew that if he didn't leave people back, he most likely loses Spain to either the locals or Rome possibly swoops in and takes it for themselves. So, in other words, he needed some kind of rear guard to stay back and protect his colony. In addition, he also needed to send some men back to Africa because he needed to have people back there to protect Carthage in case Rome were to attack the city. So in the long run, even though he started out with about 125,000 men, there was no way he was going to be able to attack Italy with this amount. If he was going to save Spain and even Carthage in the long run, when Hannibal was traveling through Gaul, he had to figure out a way to travel without being noticed by the Roman reconnaissance officers, without being noticed by the Roman reconnaissance officers. So therefore he wouldn't be able to take an easily traveled route, but he also would be able to travel through parts of the country that maybe didn't have the best opinions of Rome. So by traveling the less traveled roads he was able to potentially pick up soldiers or allies that would have had sympathies for Carthage versus Rome.
Speaker 1:Now, it should also be noted that the Romans knew Hannibal was coming to Italy through some sort of back route, because initially they had went to Spain and they saw that he was on the move towards the Alps. The issue was they lost track of where he was and this caused some panic back in Rome. So when he arrived in northern Italy in November of 218 BCE, the Romans weren't necessarily surprised because they knew he was coming. The issue was they just didn't know where he was. By the time he arrived in Italy, his military had dwindled down to about 25,000 soldiers. No one knows for sure why his numbers had dropped so much, but it seems pretty obvious to me because he was traveling through the Alps, which is extremely dangerous, and you're just going to lose a lot of troops due to sickness, desertion and death, and on top of that there is going to be certain skirmishes that happen along the way. Another explanation as to why he had only 25 to say 26,000 soldiers by the time he gets to Northern Italy is because he may have actually started out with far fewer soldiers than the time he gets to northern Italy is because he may have actually started out with far fewer soldiers than had originally been attributed to him. So maybe he didn't start out with 50,000, 60,000 soldiers, maybe he only started out with 30,000. We just don't know.
Speaker 1:The first major battle would have been near the rivers Ticino and Po, where the Roman commander, publius Scipio tried to stop Hannibal, but he was defeated. Scipio was wounded in the process, and Gaelic tribes had switched sides and now were joining Hannibal. So now he had an army of about 30,000 men, and also he had about 10,000 cavalry. The one thing Hannibal had did after the battle and he had done prior was he released POWs without a fee in order to gain favor with the local Italians. In other words, he was trying to run a sort of positive PR campaign while on military campaign. Now, that's not unusual, because this is something that Cyrus the Great had kind of done centuries prior. However, I don't think Hannibal ever really got the good press that Cyrus got. Ultimately, hannibal was trying to use the Cyrus playbook and claimed that he was a liberator, not an oppressor. Hannibal was trying to use the Cyrus playbook and claimed that he was a liberator, not an oppressor.
Speaker 1:Luckily for the people of Italy, winter was upon them and campaigning season was put on hold, but unluckily for Rome, his numbers were growing, as he was now up to around 50,000 men. Rome was also able to take this time to recover from their losses. By the time spring had come around, rome had split its army up into two so that it could try and stop Hannibal and outflank him, but it didn't work, as he was able to move along and plunder at will and resupply his troops. In fact, it wasn't the Roman military that could damage him at this point. The biggest injury came from the fact that he got an infection and lost an eye around this time, as he was maneuvering his army, he was about 170 kilometers, or about 105 miles away from Rome, but I think he quickly realized that he was never going to be able to attack the city Because it was just too well defended.
Speaker 1:One of the famous battles the battle at Lake Trasimene the Carthaginians used the mist and fog as cover, as they were able to sneak up on the Romans and kill around 15,000 men, including the Roman council, gaius Flaminius, around 217 BCE. By this time, the Romans were in full panic mode and absolutely expected Hannibal to attack the city of Rome, considering he was only four days' march away. But he chose not to, and instead he marched south to a warmer climate and, more importantly, to give his troops a chance to breathe and cut off any aid that was coming up from the south. Now, this was one of those things that people have criticized Hannibal for ever since. People wonder why he didn't just go and take the city of Rome and potentially end the war right then and there. In addition, why he didn't order the Navy to sail up from Carthage and at least try to set up a blockade or send some troops as backup. The reason why he didn't want the Navy to get involved was because everything had kind of flipped on its head and the Navy wasn't very strong and it was too risky at this point because Rome had a much superior Navy. Instead, what he wanted was he wanted to invoke rebellions because he was trying to invoke the Cyrus playbook as in I'm your liberator, not your oppressor. So join my side and let's take down these evil Romans.
Speaker 1:However, the Romans at this time kind of wised up and kind of figured out that they just couldn't take the Carthaginians on head to head anymore and instead they decided to basically tail his army and harass it. Now, as an American, the first thing I thought of when I was reading these battles was kind of how George Washington realized quickly that he couldn't take on the British head to head and instead he basically kept on fleeing and would kind of hit them sporadically here and there, but he just kept his distance. Would kind of hit them sporadically here and there, but he just kept his distance, and that's sort of what Rome did, except for Rome was following Hannibal, whereas the British were trying to chase down Washington. But it was kind of a similar tactic in a way, because in the end what they were trying to do was just wear them out without having to suffer any major defeats. Trying to do was just wear them out without having to suffer any major defeats. Hannibal tried to lure them into battles, but they just weren't taking a debate and therefore he didn't have any success as the Romans weren't going to engage. So in the end this was kind of a genius tactic, because not only were they saving their army, but also because he just couldn't get any major victories. So therefore he couldn't get any tribes to switch sides and join him. No one's going to switch sides if nothing is happening.
Speaker 1:Meanwhile, in Spain, rome is having a lot of success against Hadrubal Barca, hannibal's brother, hadrubal Barca, hannibal's brother. But despite the fact that the Roman strategy of not having full-on contact when Hannibal was working, it quickly became unpopular among the populace and the soldiers, as they saw this as being cowardly. Therefore, the Senate authorized the doubling of the legionnaires to finally deal with Hannibal once and for all and were able to raise up to 86,000 troops, by far the largest army Rome had ever raised. So finally, they were going to meet up on August 2nd, 260 BCE, something Hannibal had been waiting on for a while now. Despite the fact that Rome had a much larger force, hannibal still had a better cavalry.
Speaker 1:During the clash, hannibal had the center of his line fall back in an organized manner, while the outer parts of the line, which was staffed by the cavalry, were able to slowly outflank the Romans. Eventually, the Roman military was encircled and some 50,000 soldiers were killed, including notable aristocrats. Another 19,000 were captured and about 15,000 managed to escape. So, if you're keeping score, ever since Hannibal landed in Italy by 216 BCE, it's possible that more than 100,000 soldiers have been killed.
Speaker 1:Now it should be worth noting that, once again, romans clearly expected that this awful defeat meant that Hannibal was going to march back north and take the city of Rome, but he chose not to. And yet again, this is something that's very controversial among modern historians as to why he didn't take this opportunity the second time around to take the city of Rome, as this may have been his biggest blunder in Italy, but others will say they understood his position because, like I said a few times, rome was heavily fortified and he didn't have the proper siege engines anyway. After the battle, he did send an envoy to Rome to offer peace, but they had rejected his offer, even though many of their allies were quickly defecting and aligning with Hannibal, most notably the Greek cities in southern Italy and, of course, syracuse. In addition, there were some Italians that may have had some old grudges that may have never been fully resolved, and they also switched allegiances, such as the Samnites and Capuans, but the biggest alliance would have been with Philip V of Macedonia. By 214 BCE, rome had lost many of its allies, but they still would not come to the bargaining table, and now they resumed their previous strategy of just following and harassing him and they would not engage.
Speaker 1:Roman troops are still in Spain, which meant that Hannibal could not get reinforcements from either Spain or Carthage. However, hasdrubal did have success in Spain in 211 BCE, but Rome was able to conquer Syracuse and kick the Macedonians out of the war. But the tide really started to turn in Spain because Rome sent a brilliant young general, publius Cornelius Scipio, the son of the aforementioned Scipio whom I had mentioned prior, that had tried to stop Hannibal. In the north of Italy, scipio the Younger attacked the undefended new Carthage, or new city, and easily defeated it in Spain. In Spain, this was basically the beginning of the end of Carthage's hold on Spain, as many of its allies had switched sides and now were on Rome's side.
Speaker 1:In Iberia, scipio was able to accomplish two things For one, the obvious being that he was able to defeat Carthage and expand his military base through new allies. But on a personal note, he was able to get extremely wealthy by plundering the local population. The thing is, spain was very rich in natural resources, and silver being one of the biggest resources that they had. On top of that, hannibal wanted to focus entirely on Italy, so he had his brother, hasdrubal, march from Spain to Italy to link up with him, thus basically giving up on Spain entirely in the process. However, this strategy may have been Hannibal's worst strategy of all, because Hasdrubal was killed in northern Italy before he could even meet up with his brother. The Romans wanted to make sure that Hannibal got the message, so they cut off Hasdrubal's head and sent it to Hannibal All the while Scipio was overrunning Spain.
Speaker 1:Once the Iberian conquest was complete, scipio returned back to Rome to prepare for his voyage to Africa. It should be noted that Hannibal had another brother, who went by the name of Mago, who was in Spain, and he tried to come to Italy to try to link up with Hannibal as well in 205 BCE, but he was just too far away and he was eventually defeated and died from wounds in battle. In 204 BCE, scipio led an invasion into Africa where he got the name of Scipio Africanus. He initially didn't have much success in Utica, but he managed to defeat the Numidians twice in 203 BCE before knocking them out of the war. This more or less forced Hannibal to flee back to Carthage to defend the city.
Speaker 1:It sounds like Hannibal tried one last attempt at securing a peace deal, but neither side truly trusted in each other for peace to take hold. It does sound like Hannibal and Scipio did have quite a bit of respect for each other as generals, and that would make a lot of sense. But it does sound like, when the two men met face to face, that Scipio could clearly see that Hannibal was worn down from all the years of fighting and he had already lost an eye in the process. They finally went to battle near Zama in 202 BCE, which is about 130 kilometers or about 81 miles southwest of Tunis. This battle was basically the reverse of the Battle of Cai, as the Carthaginians were routed and nearly encircled. However, hannibal managed to get away.
Speaker 1:When Hannibal got back to Carthage, he pleaded with the city leadership to get peace at any cost, and in 201 BCE the Second Punic War was over. As it abruptly ended, scipio Africanus' goal was to make sure that Carthage would never rise again. As such, he wanted to essentially turn Carthage into a vassal state. Carthage was to pay Rome 10,000 talents over the next 50 years, and they were banned from having a fleet of more than 10 ships and they were not allowed to wage war outside of Africa, and if they were to wage war in Africa, they had to ask permission from Rome to do so. In addition, the Roman Numidian allies were given lands that had once belonged to their ancestors. So it sounds to me like there was almost a gray area that was established between Numidia and Carthage, because there wasn't really so much a strict border, which, as you can imagine, could and would lead to problems.
Speaker 1:Another interesting thing was Scipio did not ask Carthage to give up Hannibal. I'm not exactly sure why, but I suspect that there was so much respect between the two that there was just no way that Scipio could ever degrade Hannibal in that way, and I always like to play the what if game. I know Hannibal swore an oath to his father that he would never be friendly towards the Romans, but I suspect that Scipio had so much respect towards Hannibal that if he were turned over to Scipio, that Hannibal would have lived his life in some luxury villa in the outskirts of Rome, because that's how much respect Scipio had for him, and I think it went both ways, even though Hannibal supposedly hated Rome and all things Roman. Of course, let us not forget that much of the information that we get regarding Carthage comes from Rome, so this deep hatred of Rome could be nothing more than a negative public relations stunt put on by the Romans to basically make Hannibal to be some sort of savage or barbarian.
Speaker 1:Hannibal realized for Carthage to recover it needed to rediscover its maritime trade, as its long-distance trade would be needed to refill the treasury. Whether Scipio meant it or not is unclear, but by leaving the Carthaginians with 10 triremes by this time triremes were powerful cruisers, not battle fleet units Carthage was able to return to maritime trade and manufacturing. The Carthaginian economy recovered quickly after the Second Punic War. The city was able to produce surplus goods and crop yields, and thus trade and agricultural exports, made the city rich once again. The city was able to rebuild and fund major infrastructure projects. In the meantime, however, despite all this, hannibal's party lost political power in Carthage. But Hannibal did not face severe consequences for losing the war, unlike previous generals who were crucified for losing battles, and even crucified for not engaging in battles, for being perceived as a coward. This is a Phoenician society, so it's quite astonishing how much they had changed over the millennia from being a relatively peaceful group of long-distance traders to becoming a major land power. And then, after the terms of the deal were signed, scipio had the Carthaginian fleet burned in front of Carthage, sending a message to the rest of the world that Carthage is no longer a sea power.
Speaker 1:It sounds like Carthage returned back to their old political party faction headed by Hanno, or maybe it was his successors, but either way, it sounds like he was extremely intolerant and very incompetent. So, in other words, carthage had a strong leader in charge who was incompetent and was just a terrible person and terrible at what he does, and then he was thrown out of office and then another person had come in and took charge, but this new leader was much better, much more competent and generally liked, more so than the previous person, who had already shown to be almost the complete opposite, was just an awful and incompetent and intolerant person. And he was eventually put back in charge, and, wouldn't you know it, he was still terrible and he still sucked, and now he wanted to impose new taxes on its citizens. So this caused Carthage to get rid of the incompetent and intolerant Hanno and reinstated Hannibal, the much more competent politician, in 196 BCE. So, in other words, you have Hanno that's in charge. He shows how incompetent and how terrible he is. He basically leaves office or thrown out.
Speaker 1:Hannibal comes in. He loses the war because he was just going to lose the war to Rome regardless, because, first of all, rome was never going to give up, so there was never going to be peace. So Hannibal is very capable and competent. He gets thrown out of office because they lose the war. Hanno, or his descendants or whoever it was, comes back in, shows that he's just the same person that he was before, that he was terrible, incompetent, intolerant and just awful, was terrible, incompetent, intolerant and just awful. He is thrown out of office because he was so terrible.
Speaker 1:And Hannibal was put back in because people realized that they actually had a competent ruler in Hannibal I shouldn't say ruler, a competent politician, because he wasn't a king. So once Hannibal took charge of the government, he began an inquiry into the use of public funds and discovered embezzlement and fraud. In other words, the people in charge were using the treasury for their own political and economic gain. Sounds very modern to me, sounds very much like the United States. But that's either here nor there. He was even able to claw back some of these fraudulent expenses and recover some of them, and from there he was able to reform government, of which the highest officials in government were to be chosen directly by its citizens and certain officials were banned from serving consecutively and their mandates were only a year long. This did seem to put a small dent in the power base of the oligarchs, but more importantly, it helped revitalize the economy.
Speaker 1:The Carthaginians seemed to notice the improvements at home, but you know who else noticed? The Romans. As such, the Romans used Numidia as a proxy to slow down the Carthage growth. So basically what they said was Carthage was encroaching on Numidia's territory. In 195 BCE, hannibal kind of saw what was going on and started to get worried that Rome was going to try and imprison him under bogus charges, so he just fled east. In other words, he didn't want some undercover people who are masked or whatever just to arrest him for no apparent reason and send him away From there. He would basically be hired as a consultant for any kind of king or politician that would seek to go against Rome in any sort of way. Hannibal never made it back to Carthage and he died in 181 BCE. In a weird, strange kind of twist, hannibal may have been the last leader of a Hellenistic resistance to Rome, even though he wasn't Greek, but he was Hellenized.
Speaker 1:Even though Hannibal had left Carthage, his reforms took hold and Carthage was able to grow. Because of it, carthage was once again able to revamp its long-distance trade and its merchants were able to secure contracts across the Mediterranean. They were even able to extend trade into Italy, spain, greece and the Balkans, and as far as the Azores in the Atlantic Ocean. Their recovery came so swift that they offered to pay back the remaining 8,000 talents in 191 BCE. This shook Rome to its core. How could they possibly have this money so quickly? Rome needed money because they were warring in the east, but they refused to take it out of principle and the fact that getting the yearly payment meant that they could show some sort of dominance on a yearly basis.
Speaker 1:And, like I've said a few times here, most of the information that we get is kind of filtered down through the Romans. So a lot of times you're kind of going to get negative information. But it appears to me that the fact that Carthage wanted to pay this off so quickly kind of seems like they wanted to make sure that they honored their debts and, more importantly, maintain a good relationship with Rome and didn't want to cross them in any sort of way. It appears to me that they wanted to come across as allies at this point, not former enemies. In fact, a year after the Second Punic War ended, carthage sent a gift of 200,000 bushels of grain to Rome to aid them in their battle against Macedonia. In that same year, they'd offered to pay off their full balance that they owed Rome. They offered 800,000 bushels of wheat and another 500,000 of barley as a gift to Rome for its soldiers. Let us not forget that northern Africa was still the breadbasket of much of the Mediterranean at this time. That Rome did not accept these gifts seems like they could still not trust them, or maybe they didn't want to accept any gifts because they did not want to appear to put Carthage at any kind of equal footing with the Romans. In other words, what they were basically saying is hey, we're good here, we don't need your help Because, in the end, rome probably still couldn't shake off the thought that Carthage will always be a threat.
Speaker 1:With all that being said, it appears that Carthage was doing all that it could to possibly not antagonize Rome. It did not rebuild its fleet, it did not enlarge its army and it didn't wage war against aggressive Nubian neighbors. Despite all this, trade was flourishing and the new city was growing, so much so that its suburbs were even growing. The one thing they did do was strengthen their defenses. In fact, this was the time when they built its famed circular harbor, known as the Kothan. It's possible that this harbor was actually started in the last few years of the Second Punic War. This harbor was a modern engineering marvel unlike anything else in the world at the time. It can hold up to 220 ships that would be protected from attack or during a violent storm. Historians aren't really sure if this harbor was built for strategic military purposes or if it was built for long-distance trade needs.
Speaker 1:Regardless of its initial intent, the harbor played a significant part in the rise of long-distance trade and the extreme wealth that began to re-pour back into Carthage after the Second Punic War by the mid 2nd century BCE. As such, carthage almost became an ancient Manhattan by this time, because you can see a lot of immigration pouring into the city by people that were looking to make it big. The city itself may have been as large as 250,000 people, and that didn't include the slaves. That's just the city, and if you include its entire dominion, carthage had control of about 2-3 million people, but only 700,000 or so had the rights of citizenship. One factor that may have played a major role in the revival after the Second Punic War was the discovery of silver mines in Carthage's hinterlands. It has been suggested that Tunisian silver sources may have been overlooked by ancient literature, and that could explain the surprisingly fast revival of the Carthage economy after the crushing defeat of the Second Punic War and the ensuing war penalties. This may have also been a big reason why various people are fighting for lands near the city. This region was also known as the breadbasket of the Mediterranean, but if there were ample supplies of silver, then the hinterlands of Carthage and Tunisia would have been some of the most valuable lands in all of the Mediterranean.
Speaker 1:Everything seemed to be going pretty smoothly, except Carthage had one issue, in that Numidia was a problem for them. In particular. They had a lot of issues with border disputes, especially after the Second Punic War. It appears that Carthage tried to maintain passive as much as they possibly could because they didn't want to upset Rome and, let's face it, if things were going good for Carthage, the last thing they needed was another war. Whenever there was an issue, rome would typically play the role of a mediator, but would usually take the side of Numidia. Rome ruled in favor of Numidians in that they said that they had more ancestral rights to land around Leptis Magna, including the old Phoenician colony In 155 BCE.
Speaker 1:The political winds are changing in Carthage. People could see that Rome was clearly not on their side and pretty much doing all they could to hamper their freedom in one way or another. As such, nationalism started to take root and therefore the political party known as the People's Party took control of Carthage, as they were tired of Rome interference and they were ready to act now that five long decades of war reparations had been paid. The People's Party expelled political rivals who had allied with Rome and they incited Libyan farmers to resist their king's oppressive rule. Rome had sent delegates to the region to go over the disputes between both sides region to go over the disputes between both sides and among them was Cato the Senior, an elderly veteran of the Second Punic War. Cato was shocked at what he saw. He saw a city that was wealthy, if not wealthier than Rome. He also saw the populist suffet named Gisco had been openly hostile towards Rome. Furthermore, it sounds like the aristocrats and the landowners further fueled his fears.
Speaker 1:Cato returned to Rome, where he would use the mantra furthermore, carthage must be destroyed. Where he would use the mantra furthermore, carthage must be destroyed. He would say this at the end of everything, even if it had nothing to do with Carthage. So if he's given a speech at the end, he would always say furthermore, carthage must be destroyed. If he was talking to somebody about whatever it is, he would always end it with Furthermore, carthage must be destroyed. So, as you can imagine, this would have played pretty well in Rome and incited fears into many.
Speaker 1:The Carthage assembly voted for naval and military rearmament and even aided a rebel prince to assemble an army to conquer Numidia. The issue for Rome was there was a rising populism in Greece as well. Macedonia revolted in 152 BCE. Syria and Egypt were also in social disarray. This had the oligarchs and Rome on edge, considering that they had already defeated their old political and social orders. And now they're looking at widespread populist uprisings, with Carthage and Greece being their main concerns. In Greece, a conservative ally of Rome since the Second Macedonian War changed courses politically, politically and became more populist. The population was fed up with the rich oligarchs who had aligned themselves with Rome and therefore the people confiscated many of its properties and redistributed them back to the population. Corinth would have been the center of this movement, with her advanced and progressive ideas.
Speaker 1:With that being said, rome wanted to use Greece as a pretext for war against Carthage in 150 BCE. So four years later, rome deliberately provoked the Greeks into war in order to wreck the most powerful Greek state, which had become alarmingly democratic before it could generate a pan-Hellenistic confederacy. So Rome wanted to make sure that it was going to use a strong offense as a defensive measure to crush any populist uprising. Greece would have been a testing ground and, furthermore, generals and oligarchs would get rich in the process. In the end, isn't most war about getting rich? Because it just appears to me that kind of looking at war in general throughout the years, it almost always comes down to a simple formula Rich people want resources that other people have and are willing to send off the poor and working class to die for it. So it appears to me that what was happening in Greece was obviously a proxy for Carthage. But it made a lot of sense for the oligarchs of Rome to press on with the war because they knew that they were going to make a lot of money in the long run anyway.
Speaker 1:After the destruction of Greece, the Senate was looking for yet another place to plunder, and wouldn't you know it? Their old enemies, whom they had defeated twice and was one of the richest states in the known world at the time. Rome knew this for sure because they had just completed their 50-year payments in 152 BCE and, of course, carthage was offering Rome all sorts of assistance in their war over the past few years. So therefore, carthage was clearly on Rome's radar once again, and you kind of get the sense that Carthage may have known it. By 151 BCE, carthage was confined to northern Tunisia as Numidians occupied all the African lands Carthage had once controlled. This meant that the amount of tax and crop yields that Carthage could collect were cut in half. Eventually, carthage had enough of this slow encroachment by Numidia that they tried to stop them, but they didn't have much of an army, and a battle ensued, and they had lost the battle of which Rome was able to broker a peace between the two sides, had lost the battle of which Rome was able to broker a peace between the two sides.
Speaker 1:However, back in Rome, the Senate had a much different version of the story On the floor. They had argued that Carthage was the aggressors and that they were the ones that broke the peace and waged war against a Roman ally. Officials had got word and sent an envoy to Rome to plead their case to avert any kind of war, but the Romans weren't having any of it and were looking for any reason to destroy Carthage once and for all. Unfortunately for Carthage, utica, who had always been an ally, had officially defected to the Roman side. So now when Rome decided to war with Carthage, defected to the Roman side. So now when Rome decided to war with Carthage, they would have a beachhead to launch this war from. In 149 BCE, rome declared war on Carthage and thus the third and final Punic War had begun.
Speaker 1:The motives for this last war have never been clear and therefore may have been debated through the years. Some say that the Romans still wanted revenge for Hannibal's march through Italy, and others say it was just based on pure greed and that Rome just wanted to plunder Carthage. And that would make a lot of sense, because Cato the Elder, who had went to Carthage, was shocked at how wealthy the city was. Who had went to Carthage was shocked at how wealthy the city was. In fact, I'd say that this shock was probably more about jealousy than anything else, because Carthage was just in ruins practically a few decades prior, and now the city was as wealthy, if not wealthier, than Rome. So why not just go down there and take it for yourself? Why not just go down there and take it for yourself? It's the ultimate thug move.
Speaker 1:In fact, william Harris observed that the Third Punic War was quote a ruthless attack by an overwhelmingly more powerful state on one of its neighbors, unquote. The same thing could have been said when the United States attacked Mexico in the Mexican-American War in the 1840s. In fact, the same thing was said, I like to bring up these events in ancient times and kind of compare it to more modern times because, in all honesty, it kind of goes back to the quote that was attributed to Mark Twain I'm not sure if he really said that or not, but it's attributed to him anyway in that history doesn't repeat itself but it often rhymes. So that's why I bring up sometimes these things. So I bring up what was happening between Carthage and Rome in the Third Punic War to basically what happened in the Mexican-American War and that. Sure it's not the same exact thing, obviously, but you can kind of see a lot of parallels. Sure, it's not the same exact thing, obviously, but you can kind of see a lot of parallels.
Speaker 1:Polybius noted that the Senate was concerned as to not allow for the real reason why they wanted to attack Carthage because Rome still cared about the opinion of the Hellenistic world. The real reason was obvious Rome wanted to plunder and expand. This would have meant that certain individuals would have benefited handsomely in the process. So there was the pure greed aspect destroying the city once and for all. Carthage sent another envoy to Rome to try to stop another war from happening and they offered an unconditional surrender. They were basically going to do whatever it took for Rome to not proceed with the war, but Rome had already made up its mind and war was going to happen one way or the other. As part of the conditions, the first thing Rome wanted was 300 hostages from the leading Carthaginian families, of which Carthage complied with. Then Carthage wanted them to surrender all their military supplies, of which Carthage agreed. This included some 200,000 sets of armor and about 2,000 artillery pieces, and then the third piece, the piece that nobody in their right mind would ever agree to.
Speaker 1:Rome told Carthage to move the entire city 16 kilometers, or about 10 miles, inland away from the coast. In other words, they were to abandon the city completely. This sort of in a weird way had similarities to how World War I got started, in that the demands that were asked upon Serbia by the Austro-Hungarian Empire were met one by one until, finally, it was just too absurd that even Serbia wasn't going to just give up its independence. What is interesting about the demand from Rome was that this had its roots from Athens, believe it or not, from Plato in particular. A lot of this had to do with the fact that many of the ancient aristocrats and philosophers viewed land and farming as the only real means of wealth and, by doing right, by society. Plato saw the sea as corrupting and therefore he had advised the people of Athens to level the city and move 8 miles away from the corrupting sea and to live as farmers. Rome is basically telling Carthage to do the same exact thing.
Speaker 1:The council who delivered the Roman ultimatum to Carthage was a Platonist. In other words, he followed Plato. He did not trust people and the cities who live by the sea. He felt that trade gave them unstable souls and uncertain customs. In my opinion, this is just an old landed aristocracy kind of belief system, whereas the ultra wealthy think everyone else is there to serve them. In other words, in his ideal society, it was dominated by peasant labor and aristocratic control. In conforming to Plato's view, rome demanded Carthage to commit economic and cultural suicide as an alternative to being annihilated.
Speaker 1:So, as you can imagine, when Carthage saw the last demand, the city exploded in rage and the first thing they did was they just went out and massacred all the Italian residents in the city, and then the officials declared war. The entire population was involved in the preparation for this war, even though they had just given up all the war supplies. There was even stories of women cutting off their hair so that it could be used to make rope for catapults. Carthage had no chance from the outset. It was made worse when Rome was able to enact a complete naval blockade In 147 BCE. Scipio managed to defeat the army in the countryside, causing all the Libyan forces that were once allied to Carthage to either switch sides or surrender. In the spring of 146 BCE, the Romans mounted their final attack and broke into the city, but of course the people were fighting for their lives and put up a pretty fierce resistance, and they would have been able to make their way back into the heart of the city, to the Bursa Citadel, where they held their final stand. They were able to hold out for another seven days before surrendering, and about 50,000 inhabitants survived the attack, but they were sold into slavery.
Speaker 1:Polybius wrote that Scipio wept as the city was burnt to the ground, for he had known that the destruction of Carthage, which had already surrendered, was an outrage to classical norms and it was literally blasphemous. Scipio quoted the passage from the Iliad where King Priam reflected on the inevitable fall of cities, peoples and empires, and he had admitted that he foresaw the fall of Rome. The city would be sacked by a barbarian horde that sailed from Carthage. The city of Carthage was razed to the ground. Anything of monetary value was plundered, but the Romans did not pay much attention to any sort of cultural or art artifacts. Any statues that would have survived would have been labeled as Greek, not Carthaginian. There were some parallels with regards to how Hitler had plundered the Jews. The art that was transported back to Rome wasn't so much that Rome was trying to show that these people of Carthage were cultured and that they could appreciate their fine art. It was more about them destroying another culture by looting away their goods as a tool of imperial suppression. Sadly, rome did not bring back any libraries with them, and anything that wasn't burned was handed over to the local African kings.
Speaker 1:Now, it should be noted that Rome essentially took out Carthage and Corinth around the same time. Both were republics leaning towards populist democracies and were maritime traders, and probably did not really pose a direct strategic threat to Rome. However, the threat that they did pose was that of a different political and cultural ideas and how to run an economy with peaceful, long-distance trade versus having aggressive oligarchs hell-bent on hegemony through land power. So instead of establishing peaceful trade relations where everyone could benefit, the Roman Republic decided it'd be best to use war to subjugate an enemy. After Corinth was captured, the city was also ordered to be razed to the ground, so that the populist revolutionaries would be too scared to organize. These populist revolutionaries were basically democratically elected politicians, not some far-right or far-left political movements, but they scared the hell out of the landed oligarchs. The last thing that they wanted was their general population, who were essentially serfs, to leave the farms and head to the seas, because they would lose extremely cheap labor. So that's why Rome possibly wiped out two sea powers in one year. You can never truly underestimate a group of ultra-wealthy, rich guys in government making decisions, because greed has no bounds.
Speaker 1:Carthage derived its culture from the Phoenicians, but ultimately they formed a unique culture due to the immigration of various peoples, including people from Italy and Greece. Part of their culture was developing peaceful trade or at least finding coalitions and alliances through wealth obtained by trade. The Romans looked to acquire more land, which meant more wealth and power. Carthage, on the other hand, wanted to secure sea trade routes, to profit from trade and expand the Mediterranean economy. In the end, carthage was a typical sea power. They believed in a strategy of limited war and preferred a balance sheet and a ship over a sword. But unfortunately for them, the ruthless oligarchs of Rome had other ideas. Even though Carthage was essentially wiped off the map, rome figured it would be a waste not to resettle and use the region to its advantage. So around the time of Caesar, rome started to send citizens to the former city and they started to build on top of the existing city. Since Northern Africa was a breadbasket, carthage quickly rose up to be one of the wealthiest cities in the Roman Empire, just not a maritime trade center anymore.
Speaker 1:I want to thank you for taking your time to listen. Unfortunately, this is a bit of a shorter show because when I recorded the last episode, I messed up the volume and had to record the entire show over, and since I kind of ran out of time, it was easier for me to just split the show up into two. So the last show and this show were supposed to be just one, so I had to split it up because I messed up. Next up, I want to discuss ancient China.
Speaker 1:I am hoping that I can start putting the show out in video format as well. As such, I will be speaking in front of a camera for a bit, so that's something I'm not very comfortable with, but I'm hoping I don't scare some people off. But I'll have most of the show with photos and videos, so you won't be looking at my face looking into a camera for an hour or so. In fact, the last two audio episodes that I put out were actually shot on camera as I'm practicing presenting this way. So if it does sound a little bit different the way the format was in the past, maybe it's because before I was just speaking into a microphone. Now I'm actually speaking into a microphone and a camera, so it's definitely has a definite different feel and vibe. And also, too, I'm using different software because I'm going to be doing video format soon. Hopefully we'll see how it goes. Maybe it won't happen, but I'm hoping it does, but anyway.
Speaker 1:So I hope you're enjoying these shows. Please stand by and hopefully you will keep on listening. And if you like what you hear and want to donate to the show, you can visit us at patreoncom slash history of money banking trade or you can visit our website at moneybankingtradecom. Also, you can help out the show a ton by leaving a five-star review. Thank you very much. I'll talk to you soon.
