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Comment by druidish | Hacker News Reader

More controversially, note that Phoenicia invented the alphabet, had the first maritime global trade empire, colonized Europe in the 13th century BC, and Punic dynasties eventually sat on the Roman throne despite losing the Punic wars ostensibly, with one such Severan emperor dismantling the Pantheon of Jupiter. You can also trace Byzantine dynasties back eastward and later empires too have this connection through dynasties like the Komnenos. So those conspiracy theories claiming Jewish world domination are all rather quaint when you consider that Israel was just a backwater in the classical era and antiquity and it was actually Phoenician merchants who were kingmakers in Babylon and Egypt (due to their control of the Cedars of the Gods which were crucial lumber products for shipbuilding) and would later snowball with their holdings and power as time progressed, or maybe they conveniently fell into obscurity :^)

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> losing the Punic wars ostensibly

Are you saying Carthage won after the city of Carthage ceased to exist? Me thinks you've watched one too many "well, ackchyually" youtube videos... Severus was emperor almost 400 years after the destruction of Carthage and you're saying that Rome "ostensibly" won. I mean, what.

Me thinks you’ve watched too many armchair historian videos, actually. Carthage didn’t “cease to exist” lol what, you think the land was actually “salted”? Carthage became one of the largest cities in the Roman Empire, then became the capital of the Vandal Kingdom who later sacked Rome, famously.

Salted or not, a city is made up of people, people who were either killed or enslaved. Rebuilt or not, it's not the same Carthage. And if you argue that an emperor from the region 400 years later somehow proves that Carthage didn't lose, you're not a serious person.

“Okay”

Still haven't explained your time traveler there but "sure".

The "total destruction" of Carthage was a myth made up and passed along by the Romans as a warning to others. There is substantial historical evidence that "Roman Carthage" was just "Punic Carthage." Archaeologists note that there is substantial mixing of Roman and Punic architecture, meaning that Punic structures were still being constructed even after the city was supposedly destroyed or "rebuilt" as a Roman city.

The ground of Carthage clearly was not salted, as Carthage was able to reestablish itself as a major city.

However, a number of historians note that "salting" in this context is ritual, a small plot of land in a defeated city was ritually salted but the agricultural lands were not since the Romans expected to one day occupy those lands for themselves. Indeed, there is no historical evidence that any culture actually salted the lands of conquered foes, both because it would have been an incredibly stupid thing to do when wars were fought over the right to control agricultural lands, but also because salt was extremely expensive and difficult to acquire in ancient times. ("Salary" is derived from salt, which was so valuable in Roman times that it was used as a measure of value.) The amount of salt that would have been required to salt the lands of Carthage would have equaled the salaries of the entire Roman army. "Salting the earth" as a meme didn't actually arise until the 17th or 18th century, when industrial salt production finally made salt cheap and plentiful.

> So those conspiracy theories claiming Jewish world domination are all rather quaint when you consider that Israel was just a backwater

You realize Phoenicia and Israel are neighbors and two very small countries? The distance from Tel Aviv to Beirut is only 200Km. They are practically the same people except at some point in history they diverged in religion and became hostile to one another. Maybe if they kept sacrificing their children then... okay, I'll see myself out.

> The distance from Tel Aviv to Beirut is only 200Km

There have been genetically and culturally distinct populations that maintained their segregation over far smaller distances than this.

Guys the Ashkenazim maintained about 90% genetic isolation for about 1,000 years and they literally lived in cities a couple dozen meters from other Europeans. I'm not wrong.

One was a global trade empire with colonies across the Mediterranean as far as present-day Gibraltar. The other was a desert backwater. The Temple of Solomon was built by the Tyrian king Hiram, Tyre and Sidon being the major cities of Phoenicia, or Canaan.

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