Carthage’s Destruction

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Destruction of Carthage. The North African city of Carthage was rich and powerful, but in the second century BC it suffered a terrible fate. The Greek historian Appian wrote about it: “Then came new scenes of horror. As the fire spread and carried everything down, the soldiers did not wait to destroy the buildings little by little, but all in a heap. So the crashing grew louder, and many corpses fell with the stones into the midst. Others were seen still living, especially old men, women, and young children who had hidden in the inmost nooks of the houses, some of them wounded, some more or less burned, and uttering piteous cries.”When the Romans finally conquered their great enemy in 146 BC, they razed it to the ground, sold off its library and tried to destroy not merely the city but the civilisation based upon it. Carthage was removed from history with such effect that it’s hard to know the city save through Roman eyes.It was a pivotal moment in world history that left Rome as the supreme power in the Mediterranean but after it was gone the ghosts of Carthage haunted Rome and seemed to hint at Rome’s own fate.

→ Play on BBC Sounds website

Guests

• Mary Beard 11 episodes
  Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge
• Jo Quinn No other episodes
  Lecturer in Ancient History at the University of Oxford
• Ellen O'Gorman 5 episodes
  Senior Lecturer in Classics at the University of Bristol

Related episodes

• The Sack of Rome 1527
  
  22 Feb, 2024 940 History of Europe
• Hannibal
  
  11 Oct, 2012 930 History of the Ancient World
• Rome and European Civilization
  
  20 Dec, 2001 930 History of the Ancient World
• The Roman Republic
  
  30 Dec, 2004 930 History of the Ancient World
• Tacitus and the Decadence of Rome
  
  10 Jul, 2008 930 History of the Ancient World
• Roman Britain
  
  1 May, 2003 930 History of the Ancient World
• Roman Slavery
  
  5 Apr, 2018 930 History of the Ancient World
• Byzantium
  
  19 Jul, 2001 940 History of Europe
• The Roman Empire’s Collapse in the 5th century
  
  18 Mar, 2004 930 History of the Ancient World
• Babylon
  
  3 Jun, 2004 930 History of the Ancient World

---

Programme ID: b00hdd5x

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00hdd5x

Auto-category: 937 (Ancient history and civilizations)

Hello (First sentence from this episode)

Hello. The North African city of Carthage was rich and powerful, but in the second century BC it suffered a terrible fate.