Carthaginian baby-killers again

[Duncan Head]

Scholar suggests that the Carthaginians did sacrifice infants after all:
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jan/21/carthaginians-sacrificed-own-children-study

[Patrick Waterson]

Given their Phoenician origin, this is probably not too great a surprise.  The enlightening part is that some scholars have managed to overcome their current cultural norms and actually look dispassionately at the evidence.

[aligern]

It is concerning that there is such a politically correct consensus amongst academics. It is  particularly dangerous in a discipline such as archaeology or history where the evidence is imperfect anyway. Once they start suppressing the evidence because the truth is uncomfortable it is just too easy for politically inspired lies to become the accepted  story.
Roy

[Erpingham]

I'm not sure this is about political correctness as much as liberal sensibilities.  People just don't want to think about a society in which it was right and proper to sacrifice children.  Also helped along by scholars' scepticism that Roman accounts weren't just demonising propoganda of a "babies on bayonets" type.  IIRC the last "definitive" study was based on archaeological bone analysis, not just sentiment.  As the report states, the science behind this is challenged in the new study.

[aligern]

Aha, I see 'politically correct' and 'liberal sensibilities' as congruent concepts.That's not to say that other political persuasions do not censor views, but the threat from Stalinists and Nazis is very weak nowadays. The threat from those who want to see 'liberal, in the sense of soft left views imposed on others by limiting debate and controlling vocabulary  is , at the moment, severe.

As an example, I registered on a site that promotes petitions. I think thesis a good idea, that people should be able to express their wishes by electronic democracy. Recently there was a petition I refused, it was that the  nutty UKIP councillor who believed that God was punishing us with floods because homosexual marriage was legitimised, should resign. To me there is a clear and present danger that minority (and even majority) opinions are not heard and that danger currently comes from a particular quarter.
Perhaps I am wrong, but I see the  'Carthaginians sacrificing babies' thing in this light . Whatever view we have should be based on the evidence, not some prior wish that fits a political view.
At least there is now a book by Jean Manco that puts the view, with evidence, that the various invasions of Europe at the end of the Dark Ages were in fact invasions and leave genetic traces. I contrast that with the nonsense that is cited about the Ostrogoths being an army and not a people where all sorts of evidence is ignored to try and justify a view that there was not really migration.
Roy

Roy

[Erpingham]

Aha, I see 'politically correct' and 'liberal sensibilities' as congruent concepts.
Roy

Ah that is where we differ   But to go into that would rather take us off track.  Anyway, I don't think political correctness is what we face here.  It is a failure of historians and archaeologists to face up to the fact that we can have a civilised and sophisticated society which accepts as a normal state of affairs that the smooth running of the family and state can need the murder of babies.  It is one of the difficulties we face if we take the "they are people like us" school line.  But I'd rather historians tackle the difficulties rather than hid from them.

[aligern]

Me too. Ancient peoples are not like us . They gave very different moralities and would see some of the things we do such as abolishing slavery or allowing women and poor people to vote as quite mad.
roy

[Mark G]

The child sacrifice line did come from the victors, so as something hard to believe, it wasn't.
Just as we don't believe the jerries bayonetted Belgian babies in 14.
I don't see any politics behind not looking for proof it ws true , just an expectation it wouldn't be until some more direct evidence was found - which it now has been.
Liberal bias would be suppressing the find now, or arguing it was planted for roman investigators to find

[aligern]

But it came from victors who beat plenty of other peoples and did not accuse them of the same thing. Where those victors accuse Celts of head hunting we have evidence for it. So the predisposition should be to believe those victors.
Roy

[Mark G]

It would be a predisposition to believe something at odds with most perceptions of human nature.
And Carthage is not your normal roman enemy.

[aligern]

Why is Carthage not normal? Rome worked itself up about every enemy. They managed plenty of paranoia about Celts and Germans, even Macedonians. Rome had a persecution complex that would have done Stalin proud.
R

[Mark G]

Because Carthage nearly won, and the romans knew it

[aligern]

Well, the Gauls occupied Rome, the Macedonians were the descendants of Alexander and the Samnites sent a Roman army under the Yoke. Was it Cato who raised the question ' Carthago delenda est?' at each debate of the Senate? He had to raise the topic because he feared that the Romans were no longer afraid of Carthage .
Roy

[Mark G]

Well, since you put it like that, i guess it must all be a liberal conspiracy amongst archeologists and classicists (no doubt all sandal wearing fellow travellers to a man) who have suppress the notion that child sacrifice may have occurred in one of the great civilisations of the world. Its hardly the sort of thing one would accuse an opponent of normally, and is entirely the sort of thing you expect to find when you start looking.
Its Probably the same sort of attitude which explains why we have yet to start excavating Belgium searching for evidence of bayonette wounds in infants there too.
Good thing the guardian exposed this, as the telegraph and mail have clearly brought into the conspiracy, along with all those oxford dons of the last two centuries

[Patrick Waterson]

Good thing the guardian exposed this, as the telegraph and mail have clearly brought into the conspiracy, along with all those oxford dons of the last two centuries

The two things the Romans traditionally accused the Carthaginians of were cowardice (hiring mercenaries to fight for them) and perfidy (a case of the pot calling the kettle extremely sooty).  These themes recur in Livy's pre-battle speeches, but not once are the Carthaginains denigrated as dastardly infant incinerators - presumably the Romans felt that what they did with their children was up to them, and if anything, infant sacrifice meant less Carthaginians to fight in future.

So it is not Roman propaganda.  Punic treachery, yes.  Punic cowardice, yes.  Punic incineratory infanticide, no.