> Question to the latin and greek educated Seekers and Finders:
>
> At one crucial point in its history, Roma decided it had to eliminate
> its rival, the city of Carthagena, located in modern Tunisia.
>
> There was a motto, which I can't find, saying in LATIN "Carthagena must
> be destroyed".
>
> Does anyone know the correct latin words used then for this expression ?
> (1)
>
> I think any good latin teacher knows it by heart, but I don't know any
> good latin teacher!! Any links ? (2)
>
> I think Pline the Ancient used it when writing his History of Rome..
> which brings me to the third quest:
>
> where are the very good web sites on Roman/Greek/Egyptian cultures? (3)
>
> TIA
> Fpjm
Actually, it was "Carthago delenda est." Literally translated,
"Carthage is to be destroyed." Made popular by the Roman Senator
Cato in the second century AD, it was used as the reason in the Third
Punic War to not just level Carthage, but to salt the earth around
it, destroying the agricultural capability so that no civilization
would again rise in that location, at least during the remaining 2
centuries of the Roman empire.
A good place to start looking for that kind of thing might be at
http://ancienthistory.about.com . You could look at the Internet
History Resource Guide at
http://allserv.rug.ac.be/~kverbove/IAHRG/internet.html, and you might
want to also look at the Electronic Library for Ancient Historians
(yeah, I think the title's pretty funny!) at
http://www.indiana.edu/~romnhist/Electronicsept.html
I come by the knowledge a little more circuitously: five years of
Latin studies, some of which was spent translating Cato's orations.
As a less painful alternative, I recommend Gibbon's classic, The
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, which is available online.
(Check the Gutenberg project.)
