Carthage

>>2628416
They certainly burned children, it's not clear if it was for sacrifice of if it was just normal to cremate dead children (as opposed to dead adults).

My understanding is they had a mixed military, with both their own soldiers but also lots of allied/mercenary troops such as Celtiberians and Gauls.

Does anyone know anything about their government? I've heard them variously described as "republic", "empire", "kingdom", etc. What was their style of government?

>>2628428
They were republic-ish with their own weird rules. Money was a big factor since they were big traders. I like to think of a mix of Mediterranean republicanism mixed with a touch of Ferengi.

>>2628428

They cremated all their dead, adults and infants alike.

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No Carthaginian text or chronicle has survived as far as I know. We are in the hands of the Roman historians when it comes to contemporary written sources on Carthage. That, and archaeology.

>>2628428
>What was their style of government?

Constitutional republic along the Greek model, with a strong aristocratic element but with the real power lying with oligarchs (ie, the wealthy).

>>2628428
>Does anyone know anything about their government?
http://www.livius.org/sources/content/carthage-s-constitution/

>>2628416
A little bit of all of them. The powerful guys were the merchants and those with money, who used it to pursue their own goals. There are a whole host of times where Carthaginians funded invasions that had nothing to do with the Carthaginian state. This is also the reason why our history of Carthaginian military is full of resounding losses.

>>2628474
>>2628428
>The Carthaginians are considered to have an excellent form of government, which differs from that of any other state in several respects, though it is in some very like the Spartan. Indeed, the Spartan, Cretan, and Carthaginian states closely resemble one another and are very different from any others.
>Many of the Carthaginian institutions are excellent. The superiority of their constitution is proved by the fact that the common people remain loyal to it. The Carthaginians have never had any rebellion worth speaking of, and have never been under the rule of a tyrant.

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I am very interested by their army, specifically their Punic citizen soldiers. What kind of armor and weapons would they have? Apparently the Sacred Band wore Greek style armor, I'm assuming by the Punic wars they had a more Hellenistic appearance?

>>2628627
From what I understand they eventually began using Scutumesque shields, adopted from the Romans and Gauls.

>>2628468
Some Punic works were translated into Greek and Latin, and there are many thousand inscriptions in Punic.

>>2628627
You should be warned that Punic citizen soldiers were somewhat of a rarity, and that they mostly used mercenaries or allies for their military. Citizen soldiers were usually only called up in dire circumstances (such as any number of the invasions of N. Africa).

>>2628986
But Liby-Phoencian troops were pretty much the backbone of the army, but Carthage itself levied citizen soldiers who were called the Sacred Band and fought in the standard Phalangite Panoply, after the Battle of the Crimissus in the Sicilian wars in 340 BC, much of the Sacred Band was wiped out, so there was a increase in the recruitment of Libyans and Liby Phoneician troops along with troop compliments sent by allies and of course mercenaries, but later on during the Punic Wars, the citizen troops began to become a little more common in and around North Africa, but Libyans, Numidians, and Spanish mercenaries became the norm in Carthage's external holdings, I highly doubt they were all standardized until the the time of Hannibal.

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>tfw you were born in the timeline where Rome won

>>2629269
Why is he black?

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>>2629334
It's up in the are, I think he is phonecian influenced Coastal and Saharan Carthaginian which can have "black" phenotype but more along the lines of this mixed phenotype

>>2629334
>>2629269
Why is he Christian?

>>2629343
>>2629352

Not up in the air at all

Phonecian people were not black. There are basically Greeks.

>>2628467

I defy you to produce archeological or even textual evidence of this.

>>2629364
And they certainly weren't Christian.

>>2629372
>>2629352

nobody was talking about Christianity here until you showed up

>>2629377
Look at his helmet tho

>>2629364
That's why I said influenced as in cultural influence

>>2629364
How are they basically Greek?

>>2629545
Looked the same, had the same alphabet and customs

>>2629226
Polybius tells us that it was an extreme rarity that after the first punic war Carthage was forced to form a citizen militia.
The sacred band was more of a privilege, because there were so few citizens serving in the military. To serve in the sacred band was to be one of the few Carthaginians in the actual military. As you cite, that changed after they were wiped out in Sicily.
Keep in mind that when we say citizen soldiers, we mean those granted citizenship in the city of Carthage. Citizenship during that time was typically hard to get; simply living under Carthaginian rule or even in the city of Carthage did not give you citizenship. Therefore when we say citizen soldiers we mean more or less the upper echelons of society.

>>2629845
They were Phonecians, they were semetic

>>2630318
>They were Phonecians, they were semetic

Yeah and they had a symbiosis with Ancient Greeks. Basically they were the Greeks of the Arab world.

>>2630324
There was no such thing as an Arab world back then.

>>2628416
>>2628627
What's the significance of that crescent/horn emblem/standard?

>>2630541
>There was no such thing as an Arab world back then.

*Semitic

In fact, Greeks and mediterranean Arabs/Berbers (modern Phoenicians) have the same haplogroups. It seems in fact that Semitics were key element of the Greek ethnogenesis

>>2628416
>>2628428
Baal Hammon is the biblical demon Moloch

>>2629364
They were Semites

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>>2628562
Sound familiar

>>2630622
Hahaha because the Middle East was a placid gathering of brotherly love before America

It was shit when we got there

>>2628416
A good thread on /his/ for once.

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>>2628562

>>2630644
Ah fuck, that's some good shit. OC?

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>>2630823
Yep.

>>2630609
Maybe to idiots.

>>2630864
It'd be funny if it didn't ignore the reality that the war lasted decades and also included a land campaign on Sicily.

>>2629379
hey wtf is that symbol doing up there

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>>2628416
One of the great mysteries about the Phoenicians is how they were so common in Sardinia but left no genetic impact on the population, their pottery was widespread all over the island, even in the interior areas, these are just some of Phoenicians sites in the island

>>2631292
It could be because a ton of the Punic settlers were massacred during the mercenary wars, right before Roman took it over.
But even then one would think at least some footprint survives.

>>2631454
Not really, Romans slaughtered Sardinians from the hills, the ones from the cities mostly allied with the Romans, the only city which got destroyed was founded by native Sardinians (Cornus), the big Phoenician cities such as Calaris, Sulci and Nora were spared.

>>2631461
Im not talking about Romans im talking about the mercenary revolt that occurred right before the Romans took over.
"After the rebels killed Bostar, the military governor on the island, and other Carthaginians, a force was dispatched from Carthage. After arriving, however, its mercenary troops mutinied and crucified their Carthaginian general, then massacred all the Carthaginians in Sicily" Miles, Carthage Must Be Destroyed
Once again though, its still pretty unlikely that every one of the Carthaginians were completely wiped out. Perhaps those left fled?

>>2631493
Sicily=/=Sardinia, also it's unlikely the Carthaginians could just flee, each and every city was inhabited by natives and phoenicians who had been mixing for several centuries, it's not like they had just come, some of those cities were older than Rome itself.

>>2631499
Sorry, clearly I meant to say Sardinia.

>>2631507
Either way Sardinians kept speaking Phoenician until like the 2nd century AD, there wasn't a clear distinction anymore between the natives and the Phoenicians by the time of the second punic war

>>2631564
Source on that? That would be interesting to learn.