Carthage Must Be Destroyed: The Rise and Fall of an Ancient Civilization

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Richard Miles's Carthage Must Be Destroyed: The Rise and Fall of Ancient Civilization charts one of the bloodiest dramas of the Ancient World: the devastating struggle to the death between Carthage and Rome. In an epic series of battles, the mighty empires of Carthage and Rome vied for supremacy of the Mediterranean - before the Carthaginians finally buckled and their great capital city was razed to the ground, burning for six days and nights, its inhabitants slaughtered or enslaved. Carthage Must Be Destroyed tells the story of this lost empire - from its origins in Lebanon to its apotheosis as the greatest sea-power of its age - and brings to life legendary figures such as the military genius Hannibal, who led his troops across the Alps and almost toppled Roman power, but would ultimately lead his people to disaster. 'Splendid ... epic and fascinating' Tom Holland 'An enthralling narrative' Economist 'The Carthaginians finally get their due ... well-paced and compelling ... In bringing the real Carthage to the fore, Carthage Must Be Destroyed makes a substantial contribution to the field' Financial Times 'Lively and compelling' Literary Review 'Thoughtful and meticulous ... fascinating' Guardian 'A superb achievement' Sunday Telegraph Richard Miles is Professor of Classics at the University of Sydney and a Fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge University. He has written widely on Punic, Roman and Vandal North Africa and has directed archaeological excavations in Carthage and Rome. He is also the author of Ancient Worlds and the presenter and writer of the series Ancient Worlds for BBC2. Review: Repeating history? - “Repeating History?” This is truly an amazing book of ancient Mediteranean history. Reading Livy, Polybius, Gibbon, and J.D. Bury, among many others, seemed exciting but confusing. These earlier historians employed long lost city and cultural references making it difficult to get a solid focus on sequence of events. Not so Richard Miles. He makes all the social, political, cultural and mercenary issues in the two Punic Wars absolutely clear. Where clarity may have been less in the body of the narrative it is satisfactorily explained in almost a hundred pages of notes at end of the book. It was simply a pure pleasure reading “Carthage” as though a piece of entertaining fiction. It is, of course, an amply lucid recounting of history between ancient cities of Rome and Carthage. Any of my doubts or misunderstandings from reading earlier historians of this period are generally here put to rest. It is the smoothest retelling of history I have ever read, and as thorough. The full story covers history from about 1000 BC to a couple decades before the present historical era. Prelude to the main events between Rome and Carthage is told of commercial and cultural activity in the Mediterranean from 969 BC up to a first treaty between Rome and Carthage in 509 BC. This portion of the book would be well worth time spent reading if going no further. The meat of the tale begins with this background of commercial and cultural change from Greece on the east, to a lesser extent, and the pillars of Hercules on the west. The arena is Mediterranean North Africa and what became Southern European states. This geographical portion of Mediterranean history clearly establishes relationships of early European countries on the north coast to those on the North African continent. Substance of the Carthage-Rome relationships begins at about Chapter 5. From this point on the full history of Roman and Carthaginian commerce, war, cultural changes, religions, ‘families’ and component ‘peoples’ (such as the Numidians) is retold in modern terms based on the history of languages and personalities of the times. As well this history is also based on results from more recent archaeological ‘digs’. In my experience this portion of the book makes an excellent clarification for portions of Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall of Rome” while repeating bits of the prehistory. In this part of the book I came fully to understand Hannibal, along with his Barcid family. In particular his exploits leading Carthaginians from Spain (crossing the Pyrennes Mountains) across what became France and thence over early winter Alps! A landmark movement of resources and service to daily human needs let alone elements affected by multi-cultural confrontations. That anyone in this era could cross all this geography, generally on foot, and arrive in condition suitable to wage war must be regarded as even more amazing than worldwide movement of troops and weapons at present for similar purposes. After reading the book I went through complete notes at the end. Before doing so I had come to a conclusion this explication of history offered a terrible moral parallel to our present, since the world wars, but more significantly for our ‘limited’ wars in Viet Nam and Iraq particularly. In so many ways all of this ancient history between ‘powers’ of that era has been repeated, with little significant variation, by the United States and more than one other major ‘enemy’. Our present enemies are no more ‘real’ threats than those of the Mediterranean past. In both cases motives were less those of threats to our nation than to personal interests. Families of Carthage and Rome have simply been replaced by international corporations and financial interests as well as the ‘families’ behind them. Surely this book should be considered as curricula for courses at the USA national war college, Westpoint and Colorado Springs, among other such military ‘educational’ institutions. That ‘families’ of this Rome-Carthage era profited from war and made that a conclusive consideration in their decision making is exactly the same in USA experience with such as Haliburton. Consequences of atrocities in war then are no more horrendous than at present. The destruction of nature, infrastructure and social cohesion in Iraq and Viet Nam are exactly the same (thought time compressed) as in the decades long conflict between Carthage and Rome. The only difference seems to be power of weapons used and distance between areas of combat. Perhaps the cruelty then was more personal since thousands of combatants confronted each other face to face, across a battle ground fighting hand to hand. Thus different but no less disastrous for humans. Footnotes to the book hint at examination of this parallel between past and present even though the author did not. A Toronto Star reporter concluded ‘An iron fisted foreign policy: Bush’s hard line on Iraq serves notice that no Carthage will be allowed to challenge today’s Rome.” The more things change, it seems, the more they stay the same! Review: Perfect Balance between Academic and Readability - This was a brilliant book on a topic that did not spring immediately to my mind when I was looking for a good history read. I have an MA in modern history, so I have a reasonably strong grounding in the classical period, but certainly not comprehensive knowledge. This work was incredibly informative, yet did not require plunging in to Wikipedia to gain background. Despite rather obnoxiously dropping my own academic background, I do so only to assure any prospective reader that the research is incredibly rigourous. However, this is combined with an infinitely readable and compelling narrative. All too often obscure historical topics results in a thematic-based book that is torture to read, even for someone very used to academically-dense works. Whether you are an advanced reader of history, or are looking for a fascinating true-story, I think this book is a real triumph.