Roman conquest of Carthage

Roman conquest of Carthage serves in the political argument as the clearest example of destruction used to secure a newly acquired city. Unlike a dependent principality whose inhabitants have been trained to obey a ruler, Carthage represents the danger of a community accustomed to its own laws and freedom. Its conquest therefore illustrates the harsh conclusion that a free city cannot safely be held through partial measures alone: unless its political existence is destroyed, the memory and name of liberty remain available for future resistance.

Context of the Conquest

The discussion begins from a general problem of rule. A newly acquired State may resemble the conqueror’s hereditary dominions in language, customs, and laws, or it may differ from them. Similar territories are easier to retain if the old ruling line is eliminated and no alteration is made to laws or taxes. Dissimilar territories require closer supervision, personal residence by the Prince, or colonies and military forces capable of controlling local disorder. Carthage belongs to the more difficult category of acquisition because it is treated as a city that had lived under its own laws rather than as a population whose obedience was naturally attached to a single hereditary ruler.

The distinction between princely and free communities determines the risk. In a kingdom governed by one Prince and his servants, authority is concentrated: once the ruling family has been removed, the conqueror has few other established figures to fear. A free city is different. Its laws, political habits, and collective memory can preserve a basis for resistance even after military defeat. The population does not merely remember a former individual ruler; it remembers an order of self-government capable of giving rebellion the language of legitimate restoration.

Destruction as the Roman Method

The Romans are said to have retained Capua, Carthage, and Numantia by destroying them, and never lost them afterward. The example is not offered as an isolated military episode but as evidence for a rule of conquest: destruction eliminates the institutional and symbolic foundation from which a defeated free city might recover. A city no longer existing as a political community cannot invoke its ancient laws, gather its citizens under the name of liberty, or wait for a conqueror’s misfortune before rising again.

This method is contrasted with the policy attributed to the Spartans. They held Athens and Thebes by creating oligarchies in those cities, yet eventually lost them. The Romans themselves failed when they tried to hold Greece while leaving its freedom and local laws intact; only after destroying many cities in that Province could they secure their position. Carthage thus stands within a sequence of comparative examples in which destruction is presented as more reliable than the preservation of nominal autonomy.

Freedom, Memory, and Rebellion

The political danger lies less in immediate military strength than in memory. A free city can shelter rebellion beneath the authority of its ancient laws, and neither the passage of time nor benefits granted by the conqueror necessarily erases that inheritance. The example of Pisa’s rising against the Florentines after a hundred years of servitude reinforces the point: subjection may last for generations without extinguishing the remembered legitimacy of the earlier order.

Carthage consequently functions as a case in which conquest must address the city’s political identity, not merely its armed forces. The relevant question is not whether the population has been defeated at a particular moment, but whether the conquered community still possesses the structures and shared memory through which defeat can later be reversed. Destruction answers that question by removing the city as a living political subject.

Contrast with Hereditary Principalities

The treatment of Carthage is sharpened by its contrast with territories ruled by a Prince. When the old princely line is extinguished, inhabitants accustomed to obedience may lack both the habit and the unity required to choose a leader from among themselves. They can therefore be attached to a new ruler more readily. A republic or free city has the opposite condition: its citizens possess a stronger vitality, a fiercer hatred, and a keener thirst for revenge because their former freedom remains a political resource.

This contrast also explains why the conquest of Carthage is paired with the conquest of Darius’s kingdom by Alexander the Great. Alexander secured Asia after defeating Darius and stripping him of his dominions because that kingdom resembled a centralized monarchy; after Darius died, no independent baronial order remained capable of organizing resistance, and the later disorders arose from the ambition and jealousy of Alexander’s successors. Carthage belongs to the opposing model. Its danger is rooted not in the survival of rival hereditary lords but in the persistence of civic freedom.

Political Significance

Roman conquest of Carthage therefore exemplifies a broader principle concerning free cities: the safest course is either to destroy them or to reside in them personally. Leaving them under their own laws may seem moderate, but it preserves precisely the memory and institutions that can turn misfortune into rebellion. The event’s significance is consequently methodological as much as historical. It demonstrates how the book distinguishes between conquering a territory and securely possessing it, and how the form of the conquered state determines the violence or restraint required to maintain power.