The crisis of the first millennium
Extracts from Chapter Ten of "Primitive Materialism".
During the Roman period, Carthage was known for its continuation of the practice of ritual human sacrifice. The Sanctuary of Tanit at Carthage appears to date from C7. In modern times more than 20,000 urns containing the ashes of children up to the age of four sacrificed to Baal Hammon and Tanit between 400 and 200 have been uncovered.[1] The Carthaginians practised sacrifice of young children, which, by the inscriptions on the stelae, were performed to obtain divine aid. “There stands in their midst a bronze statue of Kronos, its hands extended over a bronze brazier, the flames of which engulf the child,” Cleitarchus wrote c.310 – 300 BCE. “When the flames fall upon the body, the limbs contract and the open mouth seems almost to be laughing until the contracted body slips quietly into the brazier. Thus it is that the ‘grin’ is known as ‘sardonic laughter,’ since they die laughing.”[2] The religion of Carthage was imported from its parent city, Tyre. We infer that the Phoenicians and Canaanites also practised sacrifice of young children, for which there is abundant evidence in the Old Testament.
2 Kings 23: 10
And [King Josiah] defiled Topheth which is in the valley of the children of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech.
Jer. 7:31
[The children of Judah] have built the high places of Tophet which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and daughters in the fire, which I [the Lord] commended them not.
“Topheth’ means ‘sacred enclosure’; the Hebrew-Phoenician-Carthaginian word “Molech,” MLK means ‘sacrificial offering’; “to Molech” means “as a sacrifice”. The sacrifice was made to the local Baal or supreme god.
[1] Stager, Lawrence (1980), The Rite of Child Sacrifice at Carthage.
[2] Paul G. Mosca, Child Sacrifice in Canaanite and Israelite Religion. PhD thesis, Harvard, 1975, p.22. Reference via Bennie H. Reynolds, “Molek: Dead or Alive? The meaning and derivation of mlk”, in Human sacrifice in Jewish and Christian tradition, ed. K. Finsterbusch &c, Leiden: Brill, 2007, p.133-150, p.149 n.68. His quotation is courtesy of Roger Pearce, who also references the Scholia to Plato’s Republic, I, 337A., ed. Bekker, vol. 9, p.68.
2 Kings 23: 10
And [King Josiah] defiled Topheth which is in the valley of the children of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech.
Jer. 7:31
[The children of Judah] have built the high places of Tophet which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and daughters in the fire, which I [the Lord] commended them not.
“Topheth’ means ‘sacred enclosure’; the Hebrew-Phoenician-Carthaginian word “Molech,” MLK means ‘sacrificial offering’; “to Molech” means “as a sacrifice”. The sacrifice was made to the local Baal or supreme god.
[1] Stager, Lawrence (1980), The Rite of Child Sacrifice at Carthage.
[2] Paul G. Mosca, Child Sacrifice in Canaanite and Israelite Religion. PhD thesis, Harvard, 1975, p.22. Reference via Bennie H. Reynolds, “Molek: Dead or Alive? The meaning and derivation of mlk”, in Human sacrifice in Jewish and Christian tradition, ed. K. Finsterbusch &c, Leiden: Brill, 2007, p.133-150, p.149 n.68. His quotation is courtesy of Roger Pearce, who also references the Scholia to Plato’s Republic, I, 337A., ed. Bekker, vol. 9, p.68.
Questions
1. Did the Phoencians and Carthaginians practice ritual human adult male and child sacrifice?
2. If so, were they alone in doing this? Which other ancient societies also practised human sacrifice?
3. If so, why did these societies practice human sacrifice?
4. Was there a moral crisis in overcoming the practice of human sacrifice during the first millennium BCE?
5. If so, what is the relation of that moral crisis to the religious-ethical doctrine of atonement?
2. If so, were they alone in doing this? Which other ancient societies also practised human sacrifice?
3. If so, why did these societies practice human sacrifice?
4. Was there a moral crisis in overcoming the practice of human sacrifice during the first millennium BCE?
5. If so, what is the relation of that moral crisis to the religious-ethical doctrine of atonement?
Extract Two
The Third Punic War is characterised by a desire on the part of the Romans to overcome every possible attempt by the Carthaginians to avoid it. The Romans first demanded three hundred hostages – the Carthaginians sent them; the Romans then demanded that all weapons and armour be handed over – the Carthaginians complied; the Romans then demanded that the Carthaginians relocate their city and that their city was to be burned. The Carthaginians refused. The otherwise ambiguous and apparently reprehensible incitement to war of Cato the Elder makes moral sense: "Moreover, I am of the opinion that Carthage ought to be destroyed". According the Appian and Cicero,[1] Cato finished most of his speeches to the Roman senate with these words. To what was he alluding? What did the Roman Senate understand by his remark, and why was no other gloss necessary? The siege lasted three years; the Carthaginians, though starving, refused to surrender; there was a massacre during the final onslaught; fifty thousand Carthaginians were sold into slavery, and thereafter the Romans burned the city systematically for seventeen days, and utterly destroyed it. Not so utterly – for the remains of 20,000 child sacrifices could still be found by later archaeologists. The general pattern is a moral revulsion against the practice of human sacrifice and a long struggle to eradicate it, in which the very wars played a part, even if the participants were not conscious themselves of the religious dimension.
[1] Ceterum autem censeo Carthaginem delendam esse. Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Senectute, trans. William Armistead Falconer. Loeb, Harvard University Press, 1923, p. 26.
[1] Ceterum autem censeo Carthaginem delendam esse. Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Senectute, trans. William Armistead Falconer. Loeb, Harvard University Press, 1923, p. 26.
Questions
1. Why did the Romans provoke the third Punic war?
2. Why did the Roman spend seventeen days burning Carthage after they had sacked it?
3. What did Cato the Elder mean by Ceterum autem censeo Carthaginem delendam esse?
2. Why did the Roman spend seventeen days burning Carthage after they had sacked it?
3. What did Cato the Elder mean by Ceterum autem censeo Carthaginem delendam esse?