Carthage Tries To Live Down Image As Site Of Infanticide

Post-Gazette/Wall Street Journal ^ | 5-26-2004 | Andrew Higgins

[thoughtomator]

Why should Muslims be ashamed of historical infanticide, even if they were a continuation of the same people? They show no discomfort at modern infanticide, even the mass-murder kind. Note their total silence about Beslan.

[Restorer]

I also recall that many Egyptians were angry that we had a Negro portray Sadat in a movie.

Which is really funny. Because the American Negro in question was a dead ringer for him.

[Graymatter]

By the way, Greeks and Romans and just about every other ancient race also practiced infanticide; some were more honest than others about their reasons for doing so.
And we also. We do it in the name of women's rights.

[yarddog]

He did look a lot like him.

[hubbubhubbub]

In addition to sacrifice only healthy born babies were permitted to live.

[Airborne1986]

"Carthago Delende Est"

("Carthage Must be Destroyed!")

--Cato

There is much we can learn from the Romans.

[Strategerist]

Spartans certainly did.

[wideawake]

Ah, but the Carthaginians did it publicly with fire, while the Greeks and Romans did it quietly in the wilderness at night through exposure, and we do it secretly in clinics with suction machines.

Therefore we're superior.

[hubbubhubbub]

Carthegenians hired mercenaries to fight their wars and never gave Hannibal they support he needed. Result was they fell and were estinguished after the third punic war. Rome rid herself of her biggest rival in the Mediterranean. Rome later fell (centuries later) after turning socialist (nobody worked), debasing their currency and having others (non-Romans) protect the boundaries of the empire.

[Restorer]

Greeks and Romans and just about every other ancient race also practiced infanticide

The exception was the Jews. Just about every ancient writer who mentions the Jews comments on their bizarre habit of raising all their children.

[wideawake]

Just about every ancient writer who mentions the Jews comments on their bizarre habit of raising all their children.

But remember, all religions are the same.

[Calusa]

Ping.

[KC_Conspirator]

Good point.

[Restorer]

Rome later fell (centuries later) after turning socialist (nobody worked), debasing their currency and having others (non-Romans) protect the boundaries of the empire.

The part about socialism is funny!

Socialism, if it means anything at all, is a belief in human equality. That's one delusion Rome was never prey to.

Rome fell for a host of reasons, with the big one being that her own citizens no longer believed in the worth of their own society and weren't willing to fight and die for it. Which is essentially the same reason the USSR collapsed, and why Europe is headed that direction.

Offhand, I think they were right. Their society wasn't worth fighting and dying for.

[Strategerist]

Edward Gibbon thought Christianity was a major cause of the fall of the Roman Empire.

[Restorer]

I am aware of that. But I think he's wrong. The conversion to Christianity probably gave the Western Empire another century of life. And it formed the core principle of the Eastern Empire, which hung on for another millenium.

[Modernman]

the Romans, who leveled the city and, according to legend, plowed salt into farmland to make it barren.

Probably just legend. Salt was too expensive to be used in such quantities.

[inquest]

"Semitic" refers to the twelve tribes of Shem. The Arabs were not among that number. The other group were the tribes of Cham (if I have that name correct). I never claimed that the Arabs weren't related to the Hebrews. The Semites and Hamites are two related groups, in the same sense that the different branches of the Indo-European family are related, but still form separate branches.

[Oberon]

Edward Gibbon thought Christianity was a major cause of the fall of the Roman Empire.

Yes...through the unintended consequence of leaching all the ethical people from public service...Gibbon was not particularly kind to Christianity, was he?

[Alouette]

He wasn't called "Hannibal the Cannibal" for nothing.