Re: CHAT: Punic sources

At 8:09 am -0500 12/12/00, John Cowan wrote:
>On Tue, 12 Dec 2000, Nik Taylor wrote:
>
>> David Stokes wrote:
>> > what is the language of a conquered Rome?
>>
>> Probably wouldn't be any Rome.  The Romans completely annihilated
>> Carthage, I don't see any reason why the Carthaginians wouldn't've done
>> the same to Rome if they'd won.
>
>Because they had better sense.
On what evidence?

AFAIK both sides feared and, therefore, hated the other.

>The Romans wiped out Carthage, planted
>the fields with salt, yada yada, and what was the effect?  They had
>to start a new Carthage several miles down the coast.  It was needed
>for trade.
>
>The Carthaginians lived and died by trade, unlike the Romans, who lived
>and died (mostly died) by war.  They would have had no reason to wipe
>out Rome.
Fear & hatred - both, alas, pretty strong emotions among human societies.

Personally, I have little doubt that the Carthaginians would've done much
the same to Rome as the Romans did to Carthage.  I'm quite sure both sides
knew before the end of 3rd Punic War that it was a struggle to the death.
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At 12:44 pm -0600 12/12/00, Microtonal wrote:
>John Cowan wrote:
[....]
>
>The only reason Rome has survived as such an important international
>focus for so long is because the Romans were willing to throw men and
>metal at a problem until it went away.
They were also excellent engineers and good administrators - fairly
important qualities if one wants to maintain a largish empire.

>The early Christians wouldn't
>have established themselves there if it weren't simply such a damn
>important symbol for the universality of the early church.
The origins of the early Christian community are obscure.  It was clearly
well established before anyone well-known like Paul got there.  Almost
certainly it had been brought from Palestine by Jewish converts and spread
among the even more ancient Jewish community in Rome.

No more to do with symbolism of universality than all the different ethnics
groups in modern London. It's practicallity - ancient Rome, as a long
established imperial center would, like 19th & 20th cent. London, simply
attract different ethnic groups and become a very cosmopolitan city.

When universality became important, then Constantinople was looked upon by
many as a more important center.

>Fat lot of
>good it did them, anyway. ;)
Certainly - the Roman Church has survived fairly well for nearly 2000 years.

[...]
>David, you could also take the opportunity to educate those of us who
>are interested a little bit on Punic as you're developing your conlang.
>My Biblical Hebrew grammar mentions Punic once, but only in its
>similarity to Phonecian.
'Punicus' means Phoenician - 'tis the same language.

>And even then, the section is only designed to
>situate Hebrew among the Semitic languages.
...and IIRC similar to Biblical Hebrew.

Ray.

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A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                   [J.G. Hamann 1760]
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