Posted on 05/27/2005 12:20:44 PM PDT by blam
Considering when it was written I'm a bit surprised he didn't catch more heat than he did for that.
The Romans didn't go after Carthage out of some desire to make the world a better place. It was a power struggle for domination of the Meditteranean world.
Their language is Semitic, but Arabs are anti-Semitic.
Yes! (LOL. What the fear of God makes some folks do!)
"Semitic" refers to Shem, one of the sons of Noah. The others were Ham and Japhet.
There were twelve tribes of Israel, based on the twelve sons of Jacob.
You really need to bone up on your Bible studies.
No, it refers to the descendants of Shem. The genealogy of direct descent goes: Shem, Arphaxad, Salah, Peleg, Eber, Reu, Serug, Nahor, Terah, Abraham.
Abraham the Semite had two sons - Ishmael and Isaac.
The modern-day Arabs are descendants of Abraham through Ishmael and are therefore Semites like their forefather Abraham.
Perhaps you are confused with the twelve tribes of Israel, the sons of Jacob.
Shem had only 9 sons.
The other group were the tribes of Cham (if I have that name correct).
The Hamites and the sons of Japheth were the other two branches of Noah's descendants.
The Canaanites whom the Israelites displaced were Hamites as were the Cushites, ancestors of the Ethiopians.
It was a power struggle with an edge of total war that Carthage never understood.
Total war requires hate propaganda.
The Arabs reckon themselves as Semitic based on their descent through Abraham, who was certainly Semitic. Hagar was Egyptian, and therefore possibly Hamitic, although I don't know for sure.
Was that the justification given for leveling Carthage by any of the major speakers who advocated it? That explanation seems spurious for two reasons: One, Rome's overweening concern for the welfare of Carthage's children didn't seem to give them any inhibitions about killing every last one of them. And Two, Rome itself wasn't exactly what you'd call a humanitarian paradise.
Carthaginian elites did not understand that Rome utterly hated them and would only be satisfied with their destruction.
I can't say for sure what the "elites" thought, but I think Carthage was pretty well aware that Rome had it in for them. Once they had been defeated after the 2nd Punic War, they were very careful to avoid doing anything that would upset Rome. It only seemed to make Rome even more fanatical in its demands of them. Of course, that's what appeasement will do for you.
I like the scene in Gadiator where they're re-playing the battle of Carthage in the Coliseum. From the point of view of the romans in the 2nd Century AD, the Punic wars would have been ancient history. Kind of like us watching a movie about the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire.
Nah. That may be socialist propaganda, but it isn't socialist belief. True socialism is the pooling of resources for the common good, and to make it easier for the elites to skim off the top.
It wasn't even that. The power struggle was already over, and Carthage had already been reduced to a shadow of its former self. Its destruction was just pure spite on the part of the Romans.
You're correct.
He moved in some pretty decadent circles. Also, the number of folks who actually READ his great thumping doorstop of a book was probably pretty small.
There were 12 tribes of Israel. I don't know anywhere the bible talks about tribes of Shem. You are confusing your references.
The "sons of Shem" are listed in Genesis 10:21-31, just FYI.
You must differentiate between what an ideology preaches and what it practices. In practice you aren't that far off, although similar claims can arguably be made about every other system of governance or economy ever developed.
But those who genuinely believe in socialism do so out of a desire to force humans to be equal.
Now that he's reached the desired conclusion all he has to do is twist and distort the facts to make it all fit. Kinda like the eco-terrorists and the so-called "global warming" issue.
Kinda got piled on, didn't ya? :)
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