Carthage: The Roman Holocaust (2004) Online

This is an excellent documentary which attempts to address the beginnings of a story which is yet to be fully told and when it has been it's mostly been done with venom and lies by Roman historians and their sympathisers. Richard Miles gives the viewer an insight into the world of Carthage, in all likelihood a much superior society to Rome from 800 BC or thereabouts to it's destruction in 146 by Scipio. He rightly condemns Cato the elder and lays out strongly the horror of Carthage's destruction by the Romans. There's a lot more to the story of Carthage than has so far been told, a lot lot more. If only Hannibal had marched on Rome.

Watch it.

Dr Miles presents some interesting supporting material for his argument that Carthage was and continues to be demonised in history and far from being populated by ruthless godless heathen and evil-doers they were in fact a highly civilised group of people who were the deliberate target of a Roman smear campaign.

As good as Dr Miles ideas are the production looks tacky and cheap, especially the CGI work. The fire sequences are very low grade as are some of the map work. The CGI is by no means the worst of it, Dr Miles comes across as a leering and sneering presenter which to my mind doesn't do him justice as I'm sure in real life he's an affable enough fellow. He has to learn to "smile" for the camera. The other bug bear as far as I'm concerned is the lack of cohesion, the documentary jumps backwards and forwards in a most annoying manner that really detracts from the overall watch-ability of this production.

Overall it's worth watching if you can overcome it's production limitations as some of the sites and information are worth the wait.

This is an excellent history documentary. Probably one of the best I've seen in quite awhile. Richard Miles has a passion and knowledge of the subject that takes you on journey into the ancient Mediterranean and gives you a glimpse of an empire and culture that, (due to the relentless assault of the Roman Empire), has almost disappeared from memory as it actually existed. This blows all the boring dates and names I learned about the Punic Wars in school out of the water, (so to speak), and helps to put a true face on Rome's arch enemy, a fascinating culture that we need to better understand if we are to form a true picture of the ancient world and a better accounting of the foundations on which the modern world is still shaped today. I came away fascinated and wanting to know even more.

I also applaud the style of this documentary, filmed in much the same manner as John Romer, or Micheal Wood, lacking all the annoying screen effects, flashing graphics, repetitive information, and cheap dramatizations that are now so common in many so-called documentaries that really just seem to be trying to fill a time slot.

Highly recommended!

No. Unwatchable. While the narrative of this "educational" documentary is interesting, the video itself fogs the user with absurd visuals that make no sense. For example, when talking about Hannibal, we do not see the famous elephants but rather a series of 18 wheel cargo trucks. Instead of a Carthaginian warship, we see a little motor boat with the narrator riding up front. All the visuals here are of modern Tunisia, as if there was some connection between the original Carthaginians and the modern inhabitants of Tunisia. It is distracting and obtuse to say the elast; to listen to the narration but see only these silly and modern visuals. I tried to finish watching ot over several viewings, but it was impossible. This is in fact an important story, as so little is known of the original Carthage culture, but nothing new is provided here. It is just silly. Every moment of screen-play is tedious. Perhaps if you just listen to the sound and turn off the video, you might enjoy this farce.

Rome was still a small village, while Ancient Carthage dominated the Mediterranean from Spain to the Middle East, drawing sustenance from trade and Sicilian silver mines. The Carthaginians, living in north Africa, were pretty sharp too. They borrowed a writing system from the Phoenicians and it became our alphabet -- the only instance in history of an alphabet's being invented. But Rome grew and expanded into a kind of proto-empire, bringing Rome into conflict with Carthage. A militaristic Carthaginian, Hamalcar, met the challenge, as did his son, Hannibal. Hannibal is unarguably the most famous Carthaginian of all. I mean -- "Hannibal" Lector? I'm trying to keep this summary short, so please -- no nasty letters from historians, archaeologists, historical linguists, or ex wives.

Hannibal was in truth a fine land general. During one engagement in Spain he used 21 African elephants -- that's three tons of elephant -- against his enemies. The elephants were drunk because they'd been given wine. I swear I'm not making this up. African elephants being what they are, they sometimes turned on their own troops, so each elephant driver was given a long spike to be driven into the elephant's brain should the beast go berserk.

He was given to taking great chances that only sometimes paid off. His casualties in men and elephants were always high. He began his campaign against Rome when he was down to just one elephant, and he need to recruit more soldiers on his way. Still, he moved through Spain and France, then down to the gates of Rome itself in 261 BC+. But he was denied the battle he sought because the Romans weren't stupid. Troops were sent elsewhere to entice him away from the city, and Romans launched an attack on Carthage itself in Africa on the southern shores of the Mediterranean. Hannibal was forced to defend his homeland, the first time he'd been back in thirty years.

Hannibal had spent most of his life in Spain and the Carthaginians distrusted him as an alien figure, even trying to arrange a peace with Rome behind his back. The intensity of the war died down and Hannibal was given a position as some kind of satrap. The Romans had been put to considerable inconvenience by Hannibal and hit men were hunting him down. He drank poison before they could find him but lived on in Roman memory and myth as a nightmarish figure. Carthage had lost the war and was made to pay dearly for it. These conflicts between Rome and Carthage are known as the Punic Wars.

That didn't settle the matter. Back in Rome, the militarists led by Cato wrung their hand over the destruction that Carthage had wrought on the Roman empire. Cato's cry was, "Carthage must be destroyed!" There was an anti-war faction too, led by Scipio, who felt that competition with Carthage was keeping Rome on its toes. And, forsooth, Carthage had come back from the dead. Buildings were now a tall as four stories. They paid off their debt to Rome forty years early and farmlands began to produce once again. Carthage had become wealthy and Cato hated it. They just wouldn't DIE. He wooed the public with speeches about those treacherous Carthaginians and their wealth and won them over. The Romans now demanded that the city of Carthage be abandoned, a demand that was rejected.

Then the Roman army under Scipio laid siege to the city. The Carthaginians responded by taking some Roman prisoners, pulling out their tongues with iron hooks, cutting off their genitals, skinning them alive, and throwing their still-breathing remains off the walls onto the Romans below. This was before the Geneva Accords.

The Romans were no slackers either. They managed to set fire to the city and killed everyone they could. The wife of Carthage's general, whose name I don't know how to spell, stood on top of the last refuge with her children, surrounded by flames, heaped her calumny upon her husband for escaping the city, screamed that he was a fairy, then killed her children, threw them into the fire and jumped in after them. It took the Roman army a year to level the charred remains of the city. And that was that.

The host, Richard Miles, is a young historian and archaeologist who earned his PhD in classics at Cambridge. He's earnest, knowledgeable, and physically fit. You can tell he's in shape because he runs up this long flight of marble stairs. The program is from BBC4 and was written and directed by Joseph Maxwell, who is not only highly skilled in his trade but bears a fine family name. The program was shot on location and makes Carthage look so clean and white that it makes you want to live there instead of a one-burro town in southern New Mexico.

Anyone who wants to see a painting called "Hannibal Crossing the Alps" by J. W. Turner should Google it. Under an incredibly monstrous and threatening sky, Hannibal is reduced to a tiny figure atop his last elephant, while his men sicken and die in the foreground.