20130910: Documentary Review--Carthage the Roman Holocaust

Carthage: the Roman Holocaust

1. Fundamentals
1. British live action film for television, 2004, NR, 100 minutes, documentary.
2. IMDB: 6.5/10.0 from 25 users.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: no result.  Seems it's a tv movie
4. Director: Joseph Maxwell; writer: Richard Miles.
5. Presenter: Dr. Richard Miles.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Re-enactments (?) using modern people; so many anachronisms!
2. Lots of footage of ruins, mostly the ruins of Carthage in what is now Tunisia.
3. The thesis of the piece is that the ancient world was not just created by Egypt, Greece, and Rome; Carthage, a former Phoenician colony, had a big influence.
4. Around 500 BC, Carthage was the richest city-state in the Mediterranean.  The Carthaginians pioneered the navigation of the western Mediterranean, and had mapped the entire sea.
5. In 500 BC, Rome was made of wood, not the later towering marble monuments.  Sardinia, Sicily, and Corsica were Carthaginian at the time, and the Romans were a bit claustrophobic about it.  The western Mediterranean was African (well, Carthaginian), not European.


6. Carthage built ships by kit (wood pre-cut to exact sizes with instructions on the wood; somewhat like Ikea today), so that any journeyman carpenter could build a Carthaginian warship.
7. The First Punic War started in 264 BC, and lasted 25 years.  Rome became a sea power, partly by capturing, then reverse engineering, a Carthaginian warship.  Carthage gave up Sicily in 241 BC.  Rome annexed Sardinia and Corsica the following year, and unilaterally amended the peace treaty.
8. Carthage expanded in Spain, and the silver mined there helped Carthage recoup its position.  After this, Hannibal rose as the leader of Carthage.  In 216 BC, Hannibal was at the gates of Rome in the Second Punic War.  Roman generals diverted Hannibal long enough for Roman forces to attack Carthage itself.  Hannibal returned to Carthage, but was soundly defeated there.
9. All Carthaginian colonies were seized.  All Carthaginian warships were sunk.  Carthage had 50 years to pay off a huge sum of money to Rome.


10. Cato was a young veteran of the Second Punic War.  In the Senate in his older years, Cato ended most speeches with Delenda est Carthago! (Carthage must be destroyed!).
11. Meanwhile, Carthage paid off its debt in 10 years, not 50, and became wealthy again.
12. Carthage rebuilt its navy (in defiance of the treaty) by having the shipyards inland and disguised.
13. A new Carthaginian leader rattled swords, and the Third Punic War was on.  Rome sent 85,000 troops and the general Scipio to end the city.
14. The savagery continued, and the Romans reduced Carthage to nothing.
15. In the same year, 146 BC, Rome also annihilated the Greek city of Corinth.
16. The aristocracy in Rome had the habit of seizing the lands of soldiers while the soldiers were away fighting Carthage.  So the soldiers came back to landless poverty.
17. Carthage stayed down for a good century.


18. Rome rehabilitated it in order to eliminate it even more.  They scraped away the rubble of the old Punic city Carthage, and created a new Roman city, Concordia, which became the second largest city in the Mediterranean.
19. The presenter discusses the content of the Aeneid, which describes the founding of Carthage by Dido, and Rome by Aeneas.  This was one of the earlier forms of propaganda.
20. The presenter makes a good case against the 'child sacrifice' mantra repeated by Roman commentators and by later writers such as Flaubert.
21. The film finishes by discussing what Rome inherited from Carthage, such as shipbuilding, olive agriculture, some laws, and bath house design.  One of the areas where Rome far surpassed Carthage was in its ability to win the loyalties of its allies.  The allies had the sense that they were Roman citizens.  Don't kill your enemies; assimilate them.


3. Conclusions
1. The film makes its points about history being written by the winners; in this case, the Romans and not the Carthaginians.
2. One line summary: Carthago delenda est!
3. Three stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 8/10 Good enough.


2. Sound: 10/10 No problems.


3. Re-enactments: 2/10 Fire effects layered above paintings: absurdly bad. Discussing Carthage's 'superb ports' by showing 21st century ports is irrelevant.  There were few diagrams indicated the ebb and flow of the three Punic wars.  Discussing foundations of cities as if one could visualize what used to be there is unconvincing.


4. Screenplay: 8/10 There is little new here, but the exposition is reasonable enough.  The central theme would was that Carthage was Rome's forerunner and teacher.