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Ancient Carthage
The city and her empire, made famous by Hannibal’s struggle with Rome and the daring march over the Alps with elephants, followed by a string of victories still studied at modern military academies. Who were the Carthaginians? How did they live? What deeds did they accomplish? I see Carthage and Punic culture as a related…
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Trade and weapons
It’s a long held assumption that traders, like the Carthaginians are often assumed to have been, didn’t know how to handle weapons. They lived in an age before the Pax Americana that secured global trade. In the Early Middle Ages, Jewish traders were in conflict with more religious Jews, because they wore their swords on…
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Piracy and slavery
The treaties with Rome show how Carthage was able to strongarm the Romans with their superior navy by restricting the Romans’ access to trade. It also stipulates that settlements, raided by the Carthaginians in the amphibious operations of their navy to gain slaves, would then fall under Roman control. Carthage’s raids of Italy played a…