Posted on 04/05/2011 6:11:27 PM PDT by neverdem
Hence the need for Hannibal’s invasion and basic strategy. Rome, if it were a normal Mediterranean country, should have and would have surrendered. Rome didn’t. It is that very psychological edge that made Rome victorious.
It also gives you insight into why the Soviets and our local 5th columnist elites work so hard to defeat Americans psychologically. How many government school children know Americas real history. The one of overcoming great odds and succeeding?
Other things doomed Carthage as well. They were, as you state a mercantile enclave in a foreign land. They ruled through cunning and cruelty. They had little depth in geography, political support, or population.
IIRC they used crucifixion as a regular means of punishment. It was applied to “failed” generals as well as criminals.
So do you think that Carthage had no earthly way to win or even to draw in this fight? I think that they could only be destroyed.
I agree. They were doomed from the start. Their culture, their geography and their philosophy doomed them, yet they thrived, grew rich and had one of the most amazing generals of world history.
Although I disagree with those who complain about Hannibal not taking the city of Rome itself. I don’t think he understood the Roman mind, but secondly I don’t think he could have occupied or taken Rome, ever.
We presume too much not being on the ground at that time and place. Some generals are timid, some are foolish, but Hannibal was neither. He knew the grand strategy of victory for Carthage lay in Roman surrender, the normal Mediterranean response given Hannibal’s victories, skill and location. That didn’t happen.
It is the response of Rome that made the difference. The analogy to America and our response to our enemies is telling. It means the difference between our existential victory or defeat.
If he did take Rome, it would still rise from the ashes because it was based on an idea, a concept. hence when the city of Rome fell in the 5th century, it basically still continued on in the East where the Byzantines called themselves Romaoi
The Vicus Argentarius, or Silversmiths' Quarter (the word vicus <= IE *owikos => Gk oikos "house", Engl. "eco-"; the Latin diminutive of vicus is villa), lay at the foot of the Capitoline below the Arx on its northern flank, entering the Forum at its busy corner next to the Comitia, the Rostra, and the Mamertine Prison. It overlooked (barely) what was built-out later as the Forum of Julius Caesar. It and the Velabrum and Vicus Jugarius (Yokemakers' Quarter) on the south side were the two ways out of the western end of the Forum, for anyone whose business did not take him up the Capitoline Hill.
Perhaps he did. The Roman system of alliances and their strongly cooptative business arrangements with Italic leadership elites required the solvent of serious cash. Hannibal sent for the money and explained why he needed it, the historian Polybius tells us, but the Carthaginian businessmen bridled at the new tax required to supply Hannibal's needs, and the money was never forthcoming. Romans will have detected in this transaction a "tell" of fundamental unseriousness in the Punic business community and will have made their own plans accordingly.
I agree, but the Roman will was a “tell” to their allies as well. Here is Hannibal from distant Carthage, here is Rome right among us.
If Rome’s “allies” could have defeated Rome they would have, but the realpolitik was always with Rome because of their will to win. Think how brilliant the Roman maniple is. Link it with the gladius and you’ve got a buzz saw of death.
Carthage and Rome were trading partners for 250 years, longer than we’ve been a country. What makes successful countries is their soul, their psychology. That’s why the Left works so hard to destroy our children. The invest them with the psychology of failure, doubt, guilt - a can’t do attitude.
Sunkenciv, blam — perhaps you’d be interested in this — a very nice historical article
More information! Thank you, I love FR for giving me access to such wise persons! The times I’ve been to Rome I like to imagine the current city disappearing and the Roman forum re-emerging (ok, not so difficult, except for the gigantic Vittorio Emmanuel II wedding cake building getting in the way!)
I understood that the maniple was borrowed from the Sabines. Of course the Romans perfected it (I love the story of the First Punic war when the Romans captured a Phoenician galley and within a few days made a number of copies of it and then how the Romans (land-warriors) played to their advantage by making siege plans to hook the enemy’s ships and then send soldiers to fight.
They adopted it from the Samnites.
The best description of the Romans that I ever heard came from another FReeper.
Greeks were artisans and Romans were engineers: adaptive, practical, indomitable engineers.
yes, they were fantastic engineers. They built for function and these lasted -- look at the Pantheon, the Amphitheatrum Flavium, the aquaducts, the great cities in North Africa, why even the major cities of Western and Southern Europe are all of Roman origin.
That is right. for lessons on how to strategize with and defeat Islam much better would be to study the 1000 years of confrontation between Basileia RhÅmaiÅn (Byzantium) and the Sassanids and then Islam both arab and turk variety. The 1000 years that Byzantium mostly withstood assault upon assault giving western Europe breathing room. Of course the 4th crusade was a stab to the heart of Christendom when so called Christians turned on other Chrstians instead of Mohamed’s cult.
Thanks.
Thanks for the ping, Cronos. Thanks for the thread, neverdem.
Thanks for the ping!
BTTT
Rome was a new political institution, a republican “nation.”
Carthage was that much older thing, a republican “city.”
- It overcame those difficulties, in part, by colonizing Spain, and using that as its base of operations.
Has Rome actually fallen then, of its allied countrysides would have necessarily left the relatively young Italian confederation at that time - with hindsight, I would have attacked.
As far as crucifixion, Rome also used it with regularity as well as throwing in some new and novel ideas like throwing people into lion dens to be eaten alive or tossing them into the Colosseum to be hacked to death by gladiators...
The other problem was that there were numerous schisms in the East (as it was far, far more educated than the West for centuries) hence the Copts in Egypt and the other Orientals may have actually welcomed the Moslems initially as a bulwark against orthodoxy (small O meaning what became both Catholics and Eastern Orthodox) -- and the initial Caliphates were not eager to convert folks and reduce their tax base.
One major failing of the Eastern Romans was not providing the strategic leadership. The Western knights and kings were able to think tactically and were brilliant warriors on the ground, but the Byzantine Emperor should have provided the strategic oversight and directed the Crusades into a dagger thrust straight to Mecca and Medina.
The problem is that with the wars between the various dynasties, this lead to what we now call Byzantine politics.
There was also the brilliant opportunity wasted by both east and west christendom when Hulagu Khan wasted Baghdad. A Mongol thrust straight to Arabia could have stabbed Islam in the heart.
Muslim gnats are of significance only by virtue of Western cowardice.
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