Child Sacrifice

[We shall fwee...Wodewick]

Hello team, I have started a game as carthage and I had a look at their wiki page to get a very quick(and inaccurate overview), but other than on subjects I can see the mistakes, there is a section on child sacrifice. Was child sacrifice ever confirmed? Because reading it, it says that Roman and Greek historians commonly mention it, but that conclusive proof wasn't found. It does say that lots of child graves have been found though.

Now I want to here from people who know what they're talking about. Did Carthage sacrifice children? Was this Propaganda spread by Romans? Wouldn't that lead to population problems? Do we actually know for sure?

link to an extended article on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religio...hild_sacrifice

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Sacrifices of children to Baal and his various derivities is attested in multiple sources, in the Bible as well as Greek histories. Carthaginian religion was decended from that pantheon and there is evidence of child scrifice, mass graves for example. The question is really how common it was and whether it was still happening on a regular basis by 270 BC.

[antisocialmunky]

Yeah, they killed babies. But as PVC(Plastic Guy) said, not so sure about later on.

[General Appo]

Actually Goldsworthy say that the amount of sacrificed babies increased pretty much every year until 146 BC.

I'll try to find where he got that info from.
First, let's qoute that particular passage from Goldsworthy's The Fall Of Carthage, also known as The Punic Wars (I have both versions):

"In at least one aspect of religious practice the Carthaginians were more conservative than the people of Tyre. They continued the ghastly Moloch sacrifices of infants which were killed and burned in honour of Ba'al Hammon and his consort Tanit, a practice which had been abandoned at Tyre by the time Carthage was established.
The Tophet of Salammbô, the cult site where this ritual occured, is the oldest structure yet discovered by archaeology at Carthage and the excavations have shown that the practice continued until 146 BC. Disturbingly, the proportion of sacrifices where a lamb or other animal was substituted for the child decreased rather than increased over the centuries.
Similar tophets have been discovered at other Carthaginian foundations, but rarely if ever on sites founded directly by the Phoenicians. Religion was closely controlled by the state at Carthage and its senior magistrates combined a political and religious function."

In the back of the book it is stated he gathered this information from:

"Sacrifice to Melquart, Polybius 31. 12; religion and culture, Picard & Picard (1987), pp. 35-50, Lancel (1995), pp. 193-256, esp. 245-56."

[ziegenpeter]

I beg your pardon because i cannot provide a source but i heard the thery, that those baby skelettons were from deadborn babies.

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

You can't sacrifice something that isn't alive. So that theory makes no sense.

[lobf]

Sacrifices of children to Baal and his various derivities is attested in multiple sources, in the Bible as well as Greek histories.

lol.

I admit to total ignorance on this subject, but those aren't by any stretch infallible sources. What greek histories, BTW?

[HunGeneral]

Oh yeah I also remember such greeks sources - The Illiad claims Agamennon killed his daughter as sacrifice to the goddes Diana so the greeks could sail to Troy safely. Sure the Illiad is a legend or partly fictional work but it has been proven that it does contain many accurate details.

[Antinous]

He killed his daughter?!?!?! I can't believe he sacrificed his own child. What a horrible father!!

[russia almighty]

Achilles went on a sacrificing spree when his cousin was killed by Hector.

[HunGeneral]

He killed his daughter?!?!?! I can't believe he sacrificed his own child. What a horrible father!!

Well thats what we all think. However Diana was merciful so she took Iphigenea from the pyrre and (brought her north to the lands of the thracians) replaced her with a young deer (or something like that)
But I even remember worse cases of human sacrafice in greek or roman mithology -not very often but it is there. If only half of them are true then I woulnd't be suprised if evidence for human sacrafice was found.