We were delighted to welcome back Professor Joel Christensen, of Brandeis University, to join members of the Kosmos Society for an Open House discussion on “Violence and War Crimes in Iliad 6.” As Professor Christensen writes in his Substack post noted below: The story of excessive violence in the Iliad is that of the rejection of conventions meant to make war in some way predictable and ‘acceptable’ to the combatants.… Read more
Everything about siege machines is difficult and hard to understand, either because of the intricacy and inscrutability of their depiction, or because of the difficulty of comprehending the concepts, or, to say it better, because of their incomprehensibility to most men… The most competent military commander, kept safe by Providence above because of his piety, and obedient to the command and judgment and good counsel of our most divine emperors,… Read more
“Delenda Cartago est” (“Carthage must be destroyed”)[1] Runs of Carthage, 1897 The third stage of the Punic Wars was by far the shortest, lasting from 149–146 BCE, and was entirely fought in Africa, resulting in the destruction of Carthage. The decades following the Second Punic War saw the Carthaginians regain prosperity, while the Romans engaged in nearly continuous warfare in Spain, Gaul, and Macedonia.[2] Goldsworthy describes the war as pure… Read more
The second great conflict between Rome and Carthage is the most well-known because of the famous Carthaginian general, Hannibal Barca. While this war, like the first Punic War, ended in victory for Rome, it is Hannibal and his elephants, crossing the Alps into Italy, which has captured people’s imaginations. After the end of the first Punic War, and after defeating the rebellious (and unpaid) mercenaries in Carthage, Hamilcar, father of… Read more
The Punic wars were a series of conflicts encompassing 43 years of war over more than a century, from 265 BCE to 146 BCE. They led to the Roman Republic controlling much of the Mediterranean world, to the ruin of a great North African civilization, and to many modern people speaking a Latin-based or Latin-influenced language. They occurred about 120 years before the Empire was established under Augustus Caesar in… Read more