Hacker News Reader

Comment by miroljub | Hacker News Reader

[flagged]

> Eradicating the whole civilization because of some obscure practice that most of the civilizations at the time practised to some extent?

That wasn’t even close to the to being the reason or even one of the reasons why they did that.

> He was a racist, war criminal and very corrupt politician.

Weren’t they all? You couldn’t be a military leader without being a war criminal or a politician without being corrupt by modern standards. That wasn’t really possible in the ancient world..

Feigning shock or disgust at ancient practices might be fun but it’s pretty futile..

Very strange to see US-style political discourse applied to the ancients. It really is true that as we do one thing we do all things.

The destruction of Cartagena is the first known example of purposeful destruction of the whole civilization.

The USA and the annihilation of native american civilizations came many centuries later.

There are still significant artifacts from Carthage and the city rose back very quickly. My guess is that the same-same of war happened: The elite were killed but the rest of the population was spared. Rome probably spread this rhetoric to embolden its image. Let's just say this was a different time.

No it’s not. It’s a bit more documented than some previous examples but we have written evidence for this occurring in the middle east and archeological evidence that would suggest it in many other places..

Just off the top of my head... Assyria.

Maybe read a book on Genghis Khan

Rome declared war on Carthage when it tried to expand West (Modern day Algeria). Carthage was warned about this but decided to try its' hand. Let's just say that the Roman at the time were not Chamberlain.

> No, Cato was not right. He was a racist, war criminal and very corrupt politician.

Even if he was all of that, which I'd dispute or at least question, that doesn't mean he wasn't right

> which I'd dispute or at least question,

He wanted to destroy and almost exterminate/enslave a massive city for much more practical reasons than stopping child sacrifice (which was a side note at best..). How could you question that?

He's accused of being three things and give evidence of one of his policies as a reason. For which of those, and how that policy make him that?

Im sorry?

For instance Plutarch and Livy described one of the campaigns he lead in Spain.

Every successful military commander in ancient Rome was a war criminal by modern standards. That not a particularly interesting statement considering how obvious it is but it’s not like anyone could disagree with it.

To be fair Cato might have been excessively cruel even by Roman standards since because he did coin this phrase https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellum_se_ipsum_alet

But let’s not go that far…

Why was he a racist? The Carthaginians weren't very different from the Romans.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com