08e: Conclusions

1. The Hannibal Channel
Like many Baby Boomer males, I have been known to watch the old History Channel from time to time. Although this is not necessarily an endorsement of their programming, they have many fine and illustrative shows about a wide range of nations, cultures, and related topics. But they are also kinda fixated on Hitler, reflecting the previous generation's tendency to fixate upon the Second World War and the beginning of the Cold War. This also explains why the History Channel is also called "the Hitler Channel" My generation is more or less historically fixated on the end of the Cold War. Your generation has the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The ancient Romans had Hannibal's invasion of Italy. The experience of having Hannbal spend more than a decade in Italy filled the Romans with a need to keep enemies as far away as possible. The result was a period of aggressive imperialism culminating with the destruction of Carthage and Corinth in 146 BC.

2. Somebody To Hate
Some nations function best when they are angry. the Roman historian Sallust pointed this out as early as the 1st century BC with his theory of the metus hostilis or foreign fear. The justified fear Romans felt at hearing the words Hannibal ad portas was channeled into Cato the Elder's obsessive mantra that Carthage had to be destroyed: Karthago delenda est. Even though Carthage was virtually harmless from a military standpoint, a war was provoked and Carthage was duly destroyed in 146 BC.  According to Sallust (who himself had once been thrashed in public by the husband of a woman he was fooling around with), Romans began to become weak and morally flabby once the metus hostilis had been eradicated.

3. The Great National Gut-Check
Rome was sorely tested, but proven worthy. The fact that the Romans had actually out-gutted Hannibal after he invaded Italy filled them with confidence that they could handle anything. They never forgot the battle of Cannae in 216 BC, in which Hannibal destroyed the Roman forces. If anything, they placed the battle on a pedestal and tried to use Hannibal's tactics against their own enemies every chance they got. Rome did not enter either of the Punic Wars in order to become the most important power in the Western Mediterranean; as far as they could tell, it just happened. Notice, too, that for all the honor Scipio Africanus rightly received for taking the fight to Carthage, Fabius Maximus the Delayer got even more credit for managing to buy Rome time. Scipio had flaunted the mos maiorum in being elected consul while still too young, and that was not to be encouraged.

4. Proactive versus Reactive
The Romans considered their fight to conquer the East a proactive version of the just war, thereby filling the requirements of the ius fetialis. Security reasons dictated that the Greek kingdoms and leagues had to be obedient little client states or get taken over, and as it turned out, they had to be taken over. And if it took the absolute destruction of Corinth in 146 BC to get this notion across to the Greeks, so be it. The destruction of Carthage in 146 BC was somewhat of a different case. Even though Carthage was becoming an economic power again, there was no evidence that the new Carthaginian state posed any danger to the Roman Empire. Cato the Elder's crusade to destroy Carthage at any cost was more of a political crusade against the family of Scipio Africanus (which had taken a moderate stance toward Carthage). Already Rome's internal struggles were starting to affect its foreign policy.