Propoganada of the Punic Wars

**tsyed** · 11-05-2005, 18:59

I'm interested in the propoganada aspects of the Punic Wars, from the Carthiginian and Roman sides.

Cato's "Delenda Cartahgo Est" is of course very famous, and the story of the consul Regulus, as is the whole River Erbo debate, and the tilling of the site of Carthage with salt, but what other less(er) known aspects of propaganda from both sides are there?

Subtle things like coins, edicits, wordings in treaties, speeches made to the respective senates, Hannibal's attempts to court the Italian tribes etc? Also, somewhere I saw a picture of Carthaginian Ba'al avatar lion attacking Minevra(?) the Roman bull. Can anyone point to the source of this?

**The Grand Inquisitor** · 11-06-2005, 00:16

The Romans claimed that the Carthaginians sacrificed human infants to their god Baal Ammon. There is no evidence of this actually occuring but as the Carthaginian funary practice was to cremate dead infants, its easy to see where they might have got the idea.

**Kraxis** · 11-06-2005, 03:48

Not only cremate, they asked Baal to take care of the children by offering him their bodies. For anyone on the outside it would of course look like a sacrifice, however it was the direct opposite. Baal couldn't have taken care of the child if he never got the body, now could he? At least that was the pragmatic belief of it.

Another propaganda story is the one of Aeneas and Dido. It has effectively reduced Carthage to the scorn of a dissatisfied female lover. Nice work really... Virgil really managed to humiliate and make fun of Carthage without directly doing it. And best of all he managed to pass it off as something similar to the Illiad (making it both true an epic to the Romans).

**nokhor** · 11-06-2005, 23:35

plutarch in his "Lives" makes repeated assertions of hannibal's unbelievable cruelty as his major vice. but i can't find anything that hannibal did that was extraordinarily cruel for that time period, and there are compelling stories of the opposite.

**Sjakihata** · 11-06-2005, 23:43

Also the oath that Hannibal was made to take a child. Might have been true. The romans used it to display the cruelty of the carthaginians.

oh btw, you stole my avatar tsyed

**Adrian II** · 11-07-2005, 04:01

Originally Posted by tsyed

I'm interested in the propoganada aspects of the Punic Wars, from the Carthiginian and Roman sides.

Cato's "Delenda Cartahgo Est" is of course very famous, and the story of the consul Regulus, as is the whole River Erbo debate, and the tilling of the site of Carthage with salt, but what other less(er) known aspects of propaganda from both sides are there?

Subtle things like coins, edicits, wordings in treaties, speeches made to the respective senates, Hannibal's attempts to court the Italian tribes etc? Also, somewhere I saw a picture of Carthaginian Ba'al avatar lion attacking Minevra(?) the Roman bull. Can anyone point to the source of this?

It is very hard to tell facts from propaganda since nearly all sources we have are Roman. Polybius stands out among these authors because he was a Greek hostage who remained in Italy for a long time and was more or less sympathetic towards Hannibal. There seems to have been considerable confusion among contemporary politicians and authors about the number and content of various treaties that Carthage was supposed to have broken. Just in case you want to properly dissect Cato the Elder on these and other issues, Jona Lendering's site has a good write-up: 'Cato's "six Punic perfidies" - what were they?'

As for finding more everyday forms of propaganda, that is going to be a real labour of love, Brother Tsyed.

For coins, you would have to scour the numismatic catalogues and websites. This is an example: a denarius with goddess Roma on the obverse, and on the reverse the goddess in a two-horse chariot triumphing over an elephant symbolic of Hannibal's army.

As you probably know, his captured elephants were paraded through Rome for propaganda purposes as well.

Regarding daily expressions, I know of only one: after Hannibal lost his one eye in the winter of 218-217, the Romans referred to him as 'the Cyclops'.

The Roman insistence on gruesome Baal legends may have had to do with the litteral meaning of Hannibal's name ('Baal is merciful to me').

Interesting subject. Good luck!

**tsyed** · 11-07-2005, 05:07

The replies by everyone are very insightful. Thanks!

The Grand Inquisitor,

I remember reading a thread somewhere - probably in the org - that debunked the Roman claim that the Carthiginians sacrificed *live* infants. Can't find that thread for the life of me, though.

nokhor,

Thanks for the heads up on that one. I'll try getting the relevant passage from Plutarch. BTW, do you know of any incidences of Hannibal's kindness. Of course, he was kind to Rome's Italian allies, but that was for political purposes. Any incidents where we was kind for altruistic reasons?

Sjakihata,

I believe this is part of the whole 'Barcid' theory of war that some Roman and later writers proposed; that the second Punic War happened only because of Barcid hatred for Rome, and a desire to see its destruction, this shifting blame away form themselves to a specific family within the Carthiginian oligarchy. As for the avatar, I believe it is one of the options in the control panel?

AdrianII,

That coin is interesting. That's exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for.

Interesting subject. Good luck!

I'm doing this research for a propaganda history course at my university. Most of the topics suggested by the prof were about early modern - modern history, a subject that does not fascinate me nearly as much as ancient and medieval history. That's why I chose the propaganda of the Punic Wars as the subject for my essay.

**Rosacrux redux** · 11-07-2005, 09:14

Very interesting subject! Tough one, though, you'll have to do some extraordinary research to find all the needed data. You should also check the Roman anti-Carthago campaign in Italy and Greece. In Italy they tried to convince their allies that Carthagenian supremacy would ensue to gruesome horrors for the Italics. In Greece they tried to isolate the Macedonians, who have sided with Hannibal in 214. Numerous envoys at the Aetolian League convention made sure that some of the southern Greeks would ally with them against Macedonia and eliminate the chance of the Antigonid hegemon to send army to aid Hannibal in Italy. The main argument was that Rome was going to support the independant Greek states, while Carthago and their allies the Antigonids, were trying to impose a tyrrany all over Greece. The numerous clashes of the Greeks of Sicily with the Carthagenians were mentioned in abundance. You'll find some references in Polybious.

Also a not extremely well known incident, from the Carthagenian side, was what Hannibal did before departing from Italy: he had a detailed account of his campaign carved in bronze tablets in Phoenician and Greek, and offered those to a temple at Croton (if memory serves me well, the temple of Juno). I haven't found any references about what happened to those tablets.

**Adrian II** · 11-07-2005, 14:35

Originally Posted by tsyed

I remember reading a thread somewhere - probably in the org - that debunked the Roman claim that the Carthiginians sacrificed *live* infants.

You must absolutely look into the latest archaeological research on this issue, for I have seen claims on various scholarly websites that recent archaeological finds and conclusions do support the infanticide thesis. An interesting aspect of this propaganda theme of course being that the Romans themselves indulged in similar practices not too long before this episode.

I'm doing this research for a propaganda history course at my university.

Excellent choice, Brother Tsyed! The oft-heard suggestion that war propaganda is a modern disease tied in with democratic politics and mass media seems nonsense to me. I have no doubt that the early modern propagadandists (those involved with the religious wars of the seventeenth century) actually took their cue from Antiquity. It couldn't hurt your essay if you kept the anti-Spanish and anti-Catholic 'Black Legend' theme of seventeenth century in the back of your mind; there may be interesting parallels.

May I be so bold as so suggest you post your finished essay, or the gist of it, in the Monastery? I would be delighted!

**nokhor** · 11-08-2005, 01:10

tsyed,
most of the info i have on hannibal's kindness is through inference and from memory so bear with me.

1) after hannibal ambushed and killed marcellus, who up to that time had been his most competent opponent, hannibal gave him an honorable funeral. http://classics.mit.edu/Plutarch/marcellu.html

2)there are stories that hannibal would often be found sleeping outside by a sentry's post, in the elements, as opposed to living comforatably in the general's tent as one would expect him to. i infer a general who could do that must have had the trust of his troops.

3) one of his lieutanants [forgot the name] was once astonished by the sheer size of the roman army they were about to battle, and hannibal supossedly said 'yes, but in all of that army, there is no one named like you' [paraphrased]

4) once the war was over, and hannibal became suffete in carthage, there was no generalized massacre of his political opponents who had done much to hinder his efforts at home.

5) the best indication of hannibal's kindness to me, is simply his army. that he was able to keep this polyglot force of carthaginians, libyans, africans, iberians, gauls, etc. together for almost two decades and campaigning throughout a huge swath of the western mediterranean, without this force disbanding or any serious mutinies, is to me quite astounding.

**conon394** · 11-08-2005, 06:48

The Romans claimed that the Carthaginians sacrificed human infants to their god Baal Ammon. There is no evidence of this actually occuring but as the Carthaginian funary practice was to cremate dead infants, its easy to see where they might have got the idea.

Well not really. At best scholarly opinion is divided. The problem with suggesting the Romans mistook funerary cremation is that other people like the Greeks also practiced cremation, yet the Romans never seem to have made the mistake of claiming the Greeks sacrificed infants…

More broadly I think the tendency to write off Roman era claims about Carthage as Roman propaganda ring (to me at least) a bit hollow (modern sensibilities rather than Classical ones). Conquest and empire were not ‘bad’ things, why exactly did Rome need this huge propaganda effort to justify any of the Punic wars or even the final destruction of Carthage. Rome wiped Corinth of the map without any recourse to accusations of child murder. The subjects of Rome in places like Macedonia, Athens and Sparta had fought their own long and bitter wars for empire without such accusations, why would they expect them of Rome?

**tsyed** · 11-09-2005, 07:53

Adrian II,

This essay will be the product of an all nighter (tonight!), so don't expect the quality to be Monastery level ...

Ironically for the Romans, it is sad that Carthage was levelled. Since we barely have any records left by them, it is really hard to find that many examples of Carthiginian propoganda. So my essay has far more examples of Roman propaganda than Carthiginian!

**Adrian II** · 11-09-2005, 08:22

Originally Posted by tsyed

Adrian II,

This essay will be the product of an all nighter (tonight!), so don't expect the quality to be Monastery level ...

Ironically for the Romans, it is sad that Carthage was levelled. Since we barely have any records left by them, it is really hard to find that many examples of Carthiginian propoganda. So my essay has far more examples of Roman propaganda than Carthiginian!

Serves those Romans right -- too big for their sandals, eh?

Hope you pulled it off! I would love to read some of your stuff which you deem worthy. Come on, don't be shy.