s, big black Benz,
Rockin' like "Dokken" til the party ends.
Pink champagne, can't complain, everyone's there for you.
Messed up hair, messed up nose,
Cocaine habit that no one knows about.
Even thought the lies get told, everyb
The Carthage Treaty
Written by John Lawton
This February, Rome and Carthage made peace - after 2,248 years - when the cities' mayors signed a treaty of "friendship and cooperation" officially ending the hostilities that began in 264 B.C. with the outbreak of the Punic Wars. It was a simple, symbolic ceremony which, the two mayors hope, will set an example to the rest of the troubled world.
"May... the example of Carthage and Rome further the cooperation between peoples, and the understanding between men," said Carthage Mayor Chedly Klibi, who is also head of the Arab League.
The destructive history of the two cities "shows the whole world the necessity for peace and cooperation", said Mayor Ugo Vetere of Rome, who likened the two ancient antagonists to the super-powers of today, and their siege machines and war elephants to modern nuclear weapons.
One guidebook to the "ruins of the ruins" of Carthage sees it the same way. In describing the destruction by the Romans in 146 B.C. as the "Hiroshima of antiquity", the book says that so the Punic state would never threaten Imperial Rome again, the legionaries slaughtered its inhabitants, demolished its capital and, the story goes, seeded its soil with salt.
It was precisely because of their ancient wars, said the mayor of Rome, that the signing of a peace treaty between the two cities is so significant. It is a "lesson in humility and wisdom", added the mayor of Carthage, "the last act, sealing symbolically our final reconciliation."
The treaty, committing the two cities to an "exchange of knowledge and the establishment of common information, cultural and artistic programs", is, in fact, part of a process of closer cooperation between Italy and Tunisia. Though in recent years there was a dispute over Italian fishing rights off the Tunisian coast, even that now appears close to solution with the formation of a joint fishing company.
Ironically, it was a dispute over economic spheres of influence in the Mediterranean that led to the first of the three Punic Wars between Carthage and Rome. The second began in 218 B.C., when Hannibal marched his troops and elephants over the Pyrenees and the Alps to avenge the defeat of his father in the First Punic War, and very nearly captured Rome. It was this challenge that prompted Marcus Porcius Cato, better known as Cato the Elder, to demand in virtually every speech he made in the Roman Senate: "Delenda est Carthago" - Carthage must be destroyed. He eventually got his wish in the third and final of the Punic Wars, 149-146 B.C.
But this February - in a government building at the foot of the hill where the Carthaginians made their last stand, Mayor Vetere, heading a delegation from the Senatus Populusque Romanus, and Mayor Klibi, representing the now elegant suburb of Carthage, put all that behind them. It had taken 22 centuries, but, as the Times of London put it, "officialdom in Rome never moved fast."
The Italian newspaper Stampa Sera said the treaty deprived schoolbooks of a proverbial antagonist, like Greeks and Persians and cats and dogs, while Il Messaggero of Rome congratulated Mayor Vetere on not ending up nailed down in a wooden barrel like the legendary Roman hero Attilio Regolo, who tried to bring about an earlier peace in a vain mission to Carthage.
So enthusiastic, in fact, was press coverage of the signing ceremony, that photographers pressing forward to record the historic event upset a glass of water on the table in front of Mayor Vetere as he began his formal speech before some 150 invited guests, including Tunisian Prime Minister Mohamed Mzali and a rather special resident of Carthage - Madame Bourguiba, the president's wife.
The mishap, however, provided Mayor Klibi with a perfect opportunity to prove the new friendship. As the water began to drip uncomfortably off the table into Mayor Vetere's lap, Klibi exchanged the soggy seat for his own.
This article appeared on pages 18-25 of the May/June 1985 print edition of Saudi Aramco World.
Comments
Hear the words yet to be said
Cue the music, fade to black
No such thing as no payback
Take this line, know where it ends
No return, no make amends
Is this the future or this is how it will end?
eagles our heroes soar
forever free birds
edit: (please don't make your link clickable if you paste a link, couse it feels like spam, doesn't it?)
; margin-bottom: 5pxno more Apple
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