#third punic war

[mapsontheweb]

Third Punic War - 149 BC

by u/Difficult_Airport_86

[supercomputer-lizard]

I’m just wondering about history recently and I do polls, so have this

[abtl]

Henceforth, I will label any dish that has too much salt as "Tastes like Carthage".

[drondskaath]

Carthage | Third Punic War | TBA 2023

Greek Brutal Death Metal

Artwork by Artem Astaroth

Final links to follow...

[onlyhurtforaminute]

CARTHAGE-TANIT

[smbilodeau]

Today's Little Known Facts in History

Today's Little Known Facts in History: The year 2000 is closer to the official end of The Third Punic War than it is to today. [The mayors of Rome and Carthage signed a symbolic treaty on 5 FEB 1985 that officially ended the 2,134 year-old war. The more you know, the weirder it gets.]

[lightdancer1]

Next book on the list done and that means I get to beat one of my favorite dead horses

The ghost of Cannae, in particular, and the idea of military historians admiring the flamboyant loser of wars over the more successful and less flamboyant winners. Hannibal Barca, the greatest Carthaginian general in the history of the great Carthage, cast a very long shadow with his most famous victory, and the first double envelopment in military history. He also signally lost the war.

The reasons for this stem from much of the more flawed elements of prior military cultures and what they chose to focus on, or to not focus on, and why they did. I admit that, I can freely see it. Cannae, Chancellorsville, and Austerlitz make sterling narratives. The ability of the victors to negate all that by careful use of political-strategic and logistic abilities to raise and supply troop numbers too large to be broken do not.

Thus the Punic Wars are defined by the man who did much to ruin the great Carthage in pursuit of a vendetta where he did win some of the most spectacular victories over Rome, and not by the Soviet-style ability of the Roman Republic to go 'destroy three armies? Here's six more, all of them larger than the ones you beat at such staggering cost fuck your mother.'

And that ultimately is the reality of these wars, as Goldworthy lays out. The Republic raised colossal armies and fought wars for victory or 'Carthago Delenda Est.' The price for this was equally colossal, setting in motion the rise of professional private armies loyal to the military strongmen whose battles culminated at Actium and the rise of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty and the first phase of the Roman Empire ruled by the Emperors.

And this too is a lesson that could and should have been emphasized in the military histories and academies of times past and almost never really is. The price of victory can be as ruinous and transformative as the price of defeat. Wars are not things to be embarked on lightly, and they unleash forces that are not readily controlled even by the victors, while the price of defeat can be unaffordable.

10/10

[canmom]

i do kinda wonder who came up with the idea of calling it 'world war 2'? i feel like all previous wars in a series would get called something like 'the third Punic war', not 'Punic War III'. we say WWII enough that it stopped sounding weird but that sounds like a movie title!

[blueiscoool]

Ancient Warship’s Bronze Battering Ram Sunk During a Battle Between Rome and Carthage Found

Found near the Aegadian Islands, just west of Sicily, the bronze rostrum played a role in the last battle of the First Punic War, which ended in 241 B.C.E.

In 241 B.C.E., two empires faced off in a naval clash off the coast of Sicily. By then, Rome and Carthage had been fighting for more than two decades. Rome’s victory in the skirmish, officially called the Battle of the Aegates, brought an end to the First Punic War, the initial conflict in a series of wars between the two ancient powers.

Now, explorers have recovered a piece of that final battle: the bronze battering ram of an ancient warship. According to a statement from Sicily’s Superintendence of the Sea, the ram was found on the seafloor off the western coast of the Mediterranean island, at a depth of around 260 feet. To retrieve the artifact, the team used deep-water submarines from the Society for Documentation of Submerged Sites (SDSS) and the oceanographic research vessel Hercules.

The seabed off the Aegadian Islands “is always a valuable source of information to add further knowledge about the naval battle between the Roman and Carthaginian fleets,” Regional Councilor for Cultural Heritage Francesco Paolo Scarpinato tells Finestre sull’Arte. He adds that the find is yet another confirmation of the work of the late archaeologist Sebastiano Tusa, who spearheaded exploration of the seabed as the site of the 241 battle after a separate ram, also known as a rostrum, was first found there in the early 2000s. In the two decades since, researchers have recovered at least 25 rams from the seabed.

At the time of the Battle of the Aegates, Rome and Carthage had been at war for 23 years, fighting for dominance in the Mediterranean. As the Greek historian Polybius later wrote, the Romans sank 50 Carthaginian ships and captured another 70 along with their crews, taking nearly 10,000 sailors prisoner during the naval battle. Rome forced Carthage to surrender. But the fragile peace was short-lived: Over the next century, Rome would go on to fight a second and third war against the Punic people, winning each time.

“It was very costly, both in terms of human life and economically,” Francesca Oliveri, an archaeologist at the superintendence, told BBC News’ Alessia Franco and David Robson in 2022. “In the last phase, Rome even had to ask for a loan from the most well-to-do families to arm the fleet and build new boats.”

The recently discovered ram has been brought to Favignana, one of the Aegadian Islands, for further study. Though its features are difficult to make out because the object is covered in marine life, researchers have been able to discern a decoration on its front: a relief depicting a Montefortino-style Roman helmet decorated with three feathers.

The battering ram adds to the wealth of war relics found on the seabed, which also include 30 Roman soldiers’ Montefortino helmets, two swords, coins and many clay amphorae (large storage jars).

According to the SDSS, rams were the most important naval weapons of their time. They were placed on the bows of warships at water level so that sailors could crash their boats into enemy vessels, damaging and sinking them. The plethora of rams scattered on the seabed are testaments to the weapons’ effectiveness in ancient battle.

“We are finding so many things that help to illustrate a little better the world of the third century [B.C.E.],” Oliveri told BBC News in 2022. “It’s the first site of a naval battle, in the world, that has been scientifically documented like this, and it will continue to be documented—because the area of interest is very large. … It will take at least another 20 years to explore it fully.”

By Sonja Anderson.

[ancientcharm]

Mosaic of a tragic playwright and a comic actor, ca. AD 250. From House of the Masks,  Hadrunetum /Sousse Tunisia.  

Sousse Archaeological Museum, Tunisia. 

Photos: Carole Raddato (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Hadrumetum, modern Sūsah, also spelled Sousa or Sousse, ancient Phoenician colony some 100 miles (160 km) south of Carthage, on the east coast of the Al-Hammāmāt Gulf in what is now Tunisia.  Hadrumetum was one of the most important communities within the Carthaginian territory in northern Africa because of its location on the sea at the edge of the fertile Sahel region. In the Third Punic War (149–146 BC) Hadrumetum sided with Rome, and its citizens were rewarded with partial Roman citizenship. It supported Pompey in the civil war and was heavily fined by Caesar after his victory in the Battle of Thapsus (46 BC). It later received colonial rank under Trajan. The city was a centre for the administration of imperial estates in what is now the eastern part of Tunisia and became the capital of the province of Byzacenia, formed by Diocletian about AD 300.  It was again important after the reconquest of Africa by Justinian I in 533, receiving the name Justinianopolis. Before the Arab conquest, the modern town of Sūsah arose on the site.

Written and fact-checked by:  The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

[monaluisa]

More on historical Spamano???

Okay idk how much sense this will make because that post came to me in a burst of realization and I haven’t explored Spain very thoroughly before (my speciality as a fic writer is the Ancient Mediterranean and pre-Italian Unification OCs) But there are two contexts in which I’ve discussed Spain:

The first is in “Sons of Naught”, a fic set immediately after Third Punic War, wherein Rome enslaves all of Carthage’s living descendants. Primarily, this fic focuses on my Tuscany OC taking pity on my Tunisia OC, but as Romulus is discussing his plans for his newly enslaved nations with Tunisia, this exchange occurs:

Africanus grew pale. “And what of Sakar—” he caught himself before he finished, and masking his anxiety, continued, “What of Antonius?”

“Oh, worry not, Africanus. I have no designs for him such as those you think. Recall that your father started these wars in Sicily. When we fought at Messana, my men found an infant there, who was Sicily immortal, and my own blood.

“Bearing that in mind, I declare that Antonius be given to Lovinus as an attendant.”

Lovinus looked at Antonius. Antonius looked at Lovinus. Neither spoke; it was neither’s place to do so when Romulus did.

Because Lovino’s existence is connected to the start of the Punic Wars (and because, as per a previous paragraph in the fic, Spain and Portugal are too young to really be useful as slaves) Romulus kind of just hands Antonio over for Lovino to deal with, something that Lovino must have relished.

Antonio was, for all intents and purposes, living proof that Lovino’s success as a nation was guaranteed, because Romulus was an empire who could not only kill other nations like Carthage or Etruria, but actually enslave them, something that’s implied to be especially cruel on Romulus’ part, since the enslavement will only end either when Romulus falls from power or the enslaved nations die for real.

And as we all know, Rome did fall, and Romulus’ death was a pivotal moment for both Lovino and Antonio. Everyone Romulus had enslaved in “Sons of Naught” (except for my Sardinia OC) ransacked the house and escaped to the lands they represented, knowing that Lovino was too powerless to claim ownership of them any more.

As far as Lovino goes as a character, his entire identity was constructed around being Romulus’ heir—if he has no great empire to inherit, he is nothing. The playing field has been leveled, and he has to start from scratch the same way Carthage’s orphaned descendants must. Only for Sicily, though powerful, to be conquered time and time again. Only for Feliciano (who I hc as Venice prior to unification) to totally eclipse him in wealth and trade.

And only, of course, for Lovino to end up a servant in Spain as Antonio becomes the next big power in Europe. Now, until my dying breath, I’m gonna stumble around Chibitalia because there’s no way the Italy bros specifically were as young during this period as they’re shown in the show, but I do believe that Lovino’s physical growth (his age) stunted for a while during this period. Not a good sign for a nation. (see HRE staying a child for centuries before slowly and painfully perma-dying.)

Which brings me to the second example of me talking about Spain in my fics: in “A Sicut Erat”, in which my Sardinia OC reflecting on his life and downfall while he dies at the end of WW2, there’s this section about Spain’s golden age:

And in the mansion in Zaragoza, Lovinus, then called Lovino, had been humiliated once again.

“As his grandfather renamed ourselves,” Antonio explained to Nicola in the light of the fire one night, “I have renamed him and his brother both. They bear the Spanish name Vargas.”

And how miserable time had made Lovino! Sicily had amassed wealth and power, but the boy had aged only a few human years since the last time Nicola had seen him. Lovino burned with shame wherever he went, muttering curses as he swept the floors, retorting Antonio’s every word with a biting tongue. From time to time, he was struck by fits of St. Vitus’ dance, knocking over vases and tripping over his own feet, and secretly, in the pits of the night, Nicola prayed that it meant he would see the boy’s death.

Those were the days when Spain ruled the seas, and so it seemed, the world. A slave of Rome had risen to the same level as him, if not greater: so much was the gold from the New World that its glisten became dull! The merchant ships of Genoa, who had conquered Sardinia, and Venice, Romulus’ rich and happy grandson, became powerless in the face of the brave new world that formed in the West!

Now, the whole renaming thing was just me trying to make the Italy Bro’s Spanish surname make sense 😭 but in another sense, this passage shows that the tables have turned. Antonio is now Romulus, Lovino is now Antonio, and with a new world quite literally opening up for the powers of Europe to imperialize, it seems like Lovino is just…doomed. Trade is shifting from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. A new Roman Empire can never rise again, least of all under Lovino, and to him, promised a world that collapsed under his feet, that’s a fate worse than death.

But that’s not the end of the story either! Spain declines around the 18th century, and Sicily in the 19th as Lovino gets screwed over by Italian Unification (read Brutus and Achilles if you want more insight into this and other aspects of Lovino’s character 👀) but they’re both still alive, and they’re still the people they always were. They have always been bound together for some reason or another, and because neither is nearly as powerful as they once were, they are also now even.

Idk if that made sense, but there’s a lot of twists and turns in their lives that make for a compelling relationship between the two. Not even in a shipping way, necessarily. Add in their conflicting personalities though and oooooooh baby that’s good stuff.

I need to get a life lol

[mapsontheweb]

The Third Punic War - 149 BC

[gullethead]

now see you'd think it might be impossible or at least difficult to travel faster than light, but it's actually relatively easy to do given a certain level of advancement in space travel technology. the hard part is anyone being able to figure it out given the limitations of human logic and spatial reasoning, traits which evolved perfectly for day to day life in the jungles and savannahs of sub-Saharan Africa but are less perfect for visualizing the ways in which photons interact with the "material" of the four-dimensional space-time continuum we exist in. the only person to actually ever perfectly understand the reasons for the speed of light limit and how to surpass it was a 15-year-old Carthaginian boy named Gersakkun, who was an army messenger during the Second Punic War and was crushed top-down by a panicked elephant foot during the climactic Battle of Zama in 202 BCE which sealed the fate of the war against Rome. the force and angle of the blow combined with a momentary quirk of the Earth's magnetic field and otherwise unnoticeable interference from a solar flare caused his neurons to align for 43,107 picoseconds in such a way that he visualized the exact form of the universe in its entirety and reached a kind of nirvana state before the connection was broken and his body was mulched into non-existence, which is another kind of nirvana state. the spot briefly became host to an Aleppo pine (grown from part of a pinecone which had been lodged in the elephant's sole), which would have become the only tree to understand light travel, but only grasped rudimentary Newtonian physics by the time it was razed during the chaos of the Third Punic War 55 years later. the problem has otherwise remained completely unsolved.

[emperornero]

good news everyone ! i gave up on doing homework and im looking for insects named after ancient romans and other ancient historical figures related to roman history. turns out theres a species of weevil named after hannibal!

and its glorious wikipedia description: "A species from Tunisia, named after the daring Punic general Hannibal. Hannibal was best known for his spectacular, but also costly campaign with 40 war elephants in 218 BC from Spain, France across the Alps to Italy. In 202 BC, the Roman Empire was finally victorious over Hannibal at Carthage (Carthage, today part of the Tunisian capital Tunis). It was only with the victory over Hannibal that Rome gained supremacy in the western Mediterranean. The city of Carthage was finally razed to the ground in the Third Punic War (146 BC), the inhabitants expelled or taken into slavery by Rome. Let us hope that the last Ceratonia forests on Jebel Zaghouan, and with them the new species Onyxacalles hannibali, will not meet a similar fate in the progressive destruction of the last intact biotopes in central Tunisia!""

[destroy-some-evil]

I saw @heretherebedork response to an ask about what non-BLs people should watch and the Sentinel came up as one everyone should watch. I completely agree and to see if in the year 2024 I can interest some more people to maybe give an old show from 1996 a chance - I have complied a bunch fic recs for people.

I actually got into the fandom by first reading LitGal's summary here back in the early 2000's after the show was off air, read a whole bunch of fanfic, and then watched it. There is also a Fanlore page here.

The Sentinel was Omegaverse before Omegaverse. I miss having the Sentinel AU in fandoms. It hits many of the same notes as Omegaverse but has a different beat. There is scenting, there is bonding, there is imprinting, depending on who's writing it - there is D/s just integrated into the way Sentinel and Guide behave with each other.

A lot of my old favorites are lost but a small selection of my favorite Sentinel fics and AUs:

Control Issues (186028 words) by LitGal Chapters: 3/3 Fandom: The Sentinel Rating: Explicit Warnings: Rape/Non-Con Relationships: Jim Ellison/Blair Sandburg Characters: Jim Ellison, Blair Sandburg, Simon Banks Additional Tags: Alternate Universe: Sentinels and Guides are Known Summary: In a world that knows, loves, respects, but doesn't trust its Sentinels, Jim is determined to hide his abilities. He won't submit to a guardian ad litem having custody of him in a legal system that ranks him on the same level as a child. He will not give up his control, not to anyone.

Guidelines: Beginnings (20238 words) by LitGal Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: The Sentinel Rating: General Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Characters: Blair Sandburg, Jim Ellison, Simon Banks Additional Tags: Sentinels are Known Series: Part 1 of Guidelines Summary: Jim is a sentinel who failed the U.S. Sentinel Program under questionable circumstances. Blair is the graduate student challenging the entire philosophy of the Sentinel Program in a world already nervous in the aftermath of terrorist attacks. The USSP would just like to see both men disappear. Unfortunately for them, neither Jim nor Blair is planning to give up easily.

(If LitGal wrote it, I'll read it. So I'll only rec these two from her but seriously just go through everything.)

Alpha and Omega By Panik & The Candied Yam

Roman!AU

Summary: Four years after the third Punic War, wounded Roman war hero, Geminius Virius Eleusis, finds his dull life of exile shaken by the arrival of an itinerant Greek labourer.

The First Sentinel (AKA The Ultimate Caveman!Jim Story) (1947 words) by elaine Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: The Sentinel Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Jim Ellison/Blair Sandburg Additional Tags: Alternate Universes, Humor, Series, Fanon Series: Part 1 of Five Ways Jim and Blair Never Met in Past Lives Summary: The first sentinel claims his guide in spite of language difficulties and much misunderstanding.

A Dish of Lime-Vanilla Ice by Scribe

Summary: What if you met your true love at the end of their life, when yours was just beginning? 144K

(They are soulmates, Your Honor! Reincarnation!fic. This fic also lives rent free in my mind.)

Harbor of My Heart (82523 words) by Romslinger Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: The Sentinel Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Jim Ellison/Blair Sandburg Additional Tags: Alternate Universes, Drama, First Times, Romance, AU, Angst Summary: An Alternate Universe novella where Jim remained in the Army and Blair made a much different career choice after a personal tragedy.

(also a kid!fic)

The Accidental Guide (14918 words) by 852_Prospect_Archivist Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: The Sentinel Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Jim Ellison/Blair Sandburg Additional Tags: Alternate Universes, challenge, Drama, First Times, AU, Angst Summary: Jim wasn't looking for a guide, but then he met Blair Sandburg.

Destiny's Bond (40093 words) by 852_Prospect_Archivist Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: The Sentinel, Stargate SG-1 Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Jim Ellison/Blair Sandburg Additional Tags: Crossovers: Other, Drama, AU Summary: While on a mission with SG-14, Dr. Blair Sandburg finds his destiny.

Jeeves and the Uncommon Senses (83211 words) by Mice Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Jeeves and Wooster, The Sentinel Rating: Explicit Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Bertie/Jeeves Characters: Bertram Wooster, Reginald Jeeves, Aunt Agatha, Aunt Dahlia, Bingo Little, Angela Travers, Tuppy Glossop, Oofy Prosser, Tom Travers, Claude Wooster, Eustace Wooster, OCs, Blair Sandburg Additional Tags: Angst, h/c, Alternate Universe - Sentinels Are Known, Spirit Animals, Sentinel/Guide Bonding, Mashup, Crossover, unexpected special guest stars, AU Summary: An accident triggers unexpected changes in Jeeves’s life -- and in Bertie’s.

Observations on Sentinels and Guides in Victorian London (89181 words) by RyuuzaKochou Chapters: 13/13 Fandom: Sherlock Holmes (2009), The Sentinel Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson Characters: Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, Lestrade (Inspector), Mrs. Hudson Additional Tags: Sentinel Senses, Sentinel/Guide Bonding, Action/Adventure, Hurt/Comfort, Awesome, Romance, Alternate Universe, Crossover, Alternate Universe - Fusion Summary: A Victorian era AU where Sentinels and Guides are members of everyday society. Starring Sentinel! Holmes and Guide! Watson.

Imperfections: Chicago by Dasha

Chapters: 3/3

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Characters: Constable Benton Fraser, Constable Margaret Thatcher, Detective Raymond Vecchio, Detective Stanley Raymond Kowalski, Sgt. Robert Fraser [ghost]

Additional Tags: AU

Summary: Who tracks a wolf 30 blocks through downtown Chicago? That's just not normal...

I also used to have a bunch of Stargate Atlantis with John as the Sentinel and Rodney as the guide. It was a series by ladyholder on livejournal including the The Unlikely Guide and The Unwilling Sentinel. Just adding at the end in case anyone has links to them.

[dailyhistoryposts]

On This Day In History

February 5th, 146 BCE: The Third Punic War ends with a Roman victory over Carthage; Carthage is destroyed.