 I'm here in Largo, Argentina. It's a great background to talk about Republican Rome. And today we're going to be talking about specifically 146 BC. Maybe you know the state, maybe you know that that's the year in which Carthage was destroyed, but there's so much more happening in Rome and its empire in this critical year. So today we'll take a look at what leads up to 146 and we'll look at the aftermath. Ultimately, let's say, culminating in the city of Rome with a great building revolution. Today, let's talk about 146 BC. Okay, so here's what we're going to be covering then. What happens before 146 BC, particularly a little review of the third and second centuries BC leading up to the destruction of Carthage, in particular, then we'll hone in on the early second century BC. Again, episodes leading up to the ultimate annihilation of Rome's great foe, really, in rival in the western half of the Mediterranean, then we'll turn to that actual destruction of Carthage and then pivot over to the east and see how these things are all interrelated. Not that Corinth was the great rival of the Romans in the east, but it was a major city, it was a major port and ultimately the Romans are going to be making an example of it to a degree of how they're making an example of Carthage in the west. And then I want to turn to what we spend so much time looking at in ancient Rome live in all of our entries. Now the urban center of Rome, the second century really is a watershed moment and we'll take a look at just how many important structures, the things that we call ultimately typical Roman architectural features are really getting defined for the first time in the second century BC, largely around this major conquest that's taking place against the Carthaginians as well as a lot of Greek city-states and kingdoms in the east, and then a couple of insights into the political and cultural ramifications that are as a result of all of this success of the Romans and then enlarging their empire, really defining this great empire that they have been working for centuries on, but it's really snowballing here towards the end in the middle of the second century BC. So a little bit of background, we did have another video on this, the conquest of Italy that culminates in the defeat of Pyrrhus of the Pyrrhus and Taranto down there in the heel of the boot of Italy and from that point the Romans are drawn into conflicts in Sicily, largely, right there in the Straits of Messina, and because the Greek, let's say the Greek kingdom of Syracusa that really largely dominated Sicily gets involved in conflict, gets embroiled with the Romans, and ultimately a Carthage is also that has some land controlled in points in Sicily is drawn into the conflict and then really it's step aside, Syracusa and let these two heavyweights duke it out, and that's the first Punic War, a lot of naval battles, a lot of successes, and there is a period of calm, but with the second Punic War it's all-in-out war in Rome's backyard, and you have famously Hannibal here shown in a early 16th century fresco in the Capitoline Museums, and that is by Giacobori Panda, and it is just a fun image to take a look at how people over time are conceptualizing Hannibal, but he did loom large in the consciousness of the Romans in the second Punic War because he literally was there in the back door and moved freely throughout southern Italy for quite some time, but finally the Romans moved the war into the backyard of Carthage, and it's there in modern day Tunisia at Zama that the General Scipio defeats Hannibal and the rest is history, but actually what happens is the Romans pretty much tied up the loose ends of what Carthage was going to be allowed to do after this second conflict, but Hannibal himself ultimately is going to be leaving Carthage and is going to be spending his time as a political refugee, as a military strategist and expert, to a lot of people in the Greek East, people in the Greek East that are getting in contact with and are battling against the Romans as the Romans head east, and he is a real thorn in the Roman side until finally his death in 181, but there is this paranoia, this concern about what is Hannibal going to do to stir up trouble for us, what are the Carthaginians capable of, certainly they didn't want to go into a third conflict, but they did. Now getting closer to the conflict of the third Punic War, let's look at what the Romans are turning most their attention to, they're turning their attention to the east, again that's where Hannibal is going to be going, and you do have a lot of conquest of the so-called successors of Alexander the Great, so he dies in 323, his generals then carve up his empire, of course a lot of the empire was what we call the Middle East, it's Egypt, and it's a lot of the Persian empire, so that is where the Romans are turning to next, and we have the rise of great generals, not just Scipia, but we have Fomininus who defeats Philip V of Macedon, Alexander the Great himself was Alexander of Macedonia, so you have that idea of places, kingdoms, people that have some of the wealth achieved by Alexander the Great sending their own kingdoms, and they are taking out one by one by the Roman armies, Rome against Atticus III, so what we call Syria today, the Galatians that's in Turkey, Emilius Paulus in 168 defeats Persians of Macedon at a place called Pidna, set up a very famous trophy in Adelphi, so we're looking down here, decade by decade victory after victory after victory for Rome, and of course people are getting triumphs, they're big military victory parades in the city of Rome, they're bringing the spoils of war, it's the money, it's the slaves, and all this newfound revenue as areas that are conquered are going to be taxed, provinces are going to be set up, Rome's first international overseas province was Sicily after the Second Pinoch War, and then you get Sardinia, and then you're moving over to the east obviously, it's an unstoppable machine, and it's really picking up tempo let's say in the early second century BC, and then we're going to now turn our attention to Carthage, because the Romans are not forgetting what literally is just across the way from their territory that they've conquered in Sicily, you can see Tunisia from the southernmost part of Sicily, it's that close. First we'll talk about Carthage, its destruction, what led up to it, we've already had two Punic wars, and yet Rome felt compelled in 149 to start a third war against Carthage ultimately culminating in its destruction, finally realizing that statement by Cato the Elder, Carthage must be destroyed, Carthago the Lenda est. The destruction of Carthage, you have the ultimate concern, perennial concern, let's say the members of the Senate led by Cato the Elder, who's already a well-known statesman in the 180s, is hounding and harassing his fellow senators that look at what Carthage is doing, they're able to pay off the thousands and thousands of, you know, the gold, the talents of silver in a short order, much faster than the Romans ever thought they could, and the produce that is arriving in the city of Rome is coming from Carthage, you know, in the same day, so he leads up with and he continues in his speeches that Carthage must be destroyed, he's saying this almost on a daily basis, and it leads ultimately to an assessment of how Carthage is, the Romans are really, you know, paranoid at this point because the Carthaginians are smart merchants, they've always done well, but they've lost all the land holdings from the previous war, they no longer have land holdings in Sicily or Sardinia or in Spain, they don't have the silver mines that they opened up any more, the Romans have taken that over, and yet still the Romans are paranoid, and war is finally declared in 149, and we have the account by the Greek historian, first true great historian that we have recorded about Roman history, he's writing in Greek, he's befriended, he's in the circle of Scipio Africanus, and ultimately we have the total destruction, the raising of the walls, the sowing of salt in the fields, and so on, but let's face it, it's too much of a good thing there in Carthage, and within a 15 years they're already talking about colonizing it, they've got a great double harbor, it's in a unique strategic position and so forth, and then really it's not really going to take off until we get to Julius Caesar in terms of a large colony being constructed, but it was something that the Romans ultimately deemed necessary to sell off the population as slaves, to just totally liquidate the assets of this civilization, here is a horrific kind of view, and this is by Edward Pointer in 1868, just one of those scenes of the siege of Carthage, and it really was something that left an impression on Romans and school children for future generations, but everyone remembers that quote, that anecdote of a Polyvius remarking that as Carthage, you know, the walls are being knocked down, the city is being sacked, Escipi himself is seen to be weeping, and when Polybius asks, you know, why are you crying, he says, well, because this is the end of these people, and of course I know that one day this fate will fall, my people, my city of Rome, so it's something that the Romans were very much aware of when they had finally then removed their great foe, and in fact, without the Carthaginians then, what was holding back the Romans from the total domination of the Mediterranean, and they could further turn their attention to the East? 146 BC, the destruction of Carthage, but another pivotal event took place in that same year, the destruction of Corinth in the eastern half of the Mediterranean, why did this take place in the same year? What were the repercussions? What led up to this event? Let's talk now about 146 and the annihilation of the magnificent city of Corinth by the Romans. Okay, so briefly we talked about the various forays into the east and the just successive victories of the Romans against these various successor kingdoms of Alexander the Great, the Seleucids, the Macedonians. It really was something that was, I mean, the Romans, we see them with their treaties, with their amikittia, their friendships or relationships with these Greek city-states and these kingdoms, that ultimately there's a reverence. There is an appreciation of that culture and politically, there are oftentimes, as opposed to what they're doing in the West, remaining largely hands-off in their dealings with the inner workings of the Greek politics and city-states and so forth, and it led eventually to infighting amongst themselves and the Greek cities, the Greek city-states, and ultimately the Achaean League, one of these groupings of various city-states that ultimately decide to rebel against the Romans to throw up their shackles even though the Romans' approach to dealing with the Greeks and their own inner complexities politically, socially, culturally, wasn't enough. And when the Romans then decide to come down hard, they literally crush the League quickly, and the general name Lucius Mumius, there's a great inscription by him, directly by him, that's in the Museo Nacional de Romano, Museo de la Terme. He is leading the troops that advance to Corinth, siege the city, and then ultimately sack and raise that city to the ground. Here is a horrific image by Tony Robert Fleury of 1870 and what's going to be the sequel? The sequel is that this too will become a Roman colony, a great Roman city that's going to flourish. Why? Well, again, like Carthage, it had a great natural harbor, it was a great port, and the Romans were going to ignore those facts and they built up their own city. So when you go to Corinth one day, you'll see largely a Greek city with this heavy architecture style that will basically look like a Roman city with the amphitheater and everything that you do associate with the Romans. So it's an exciting place to visit if you want to see that combination then of the Greek initial imprint, the older temples, and then subsequently massive, new, rectilinear Roman colony of the imperial periods. A long-standing excavation by the American school in Athens, it's worth a visit one day when you go to the Peloponnese. There's a real building revolution that takes place in the second century BC. We're going to have the first stone bridge, the first paved road, the first basilicas, and the real watershed moment is taking place after the destruction of Carthage and also Corinth, you're bringing in more than ever slaves, spoils of war. You're able to make your city more magnificent than ever you're really developing the urban center of Rome and here we have a little bit of insight into that moment looking at Largo Argentina, which has four temples that date from the third to second into the first centuries BC. And it is an extraordinary window into Republican Rome, into that moment in time when Rome is truly creating a massive empire throughout the Mediterranean. Okay, so here's a little rundown. A lot of structural innovations are created, the basilica and the porticoes are coming in to frame sacred and profane spaces, the basilicas with the law courts that start to define the area of the Roman form. We're going to have, and this is taking place in the in the 170s and 180s BC, you got the first triumphal arches documented in the 190s. We're going to get the first portico, the portico Emilia, which is basically a covered area for shipsheds and porium coverings for warehouses along the Tiber River with new port facilities. We're going to get the first stone bridge, which would have been right behind here, the round temple in the Forum Boireum. We get the first paved road, so sure there are roads beforehand, but now they're getting these huge lava stone, basil stone blocks that we kind of know and love as we walk along the Via Appia. We're going to get the first marble temple in the Circus Fominius. This round temple right here that we see is the oldest marble temple still standing, which is dedicated to Hercules and it's something to keep in mind that this would have been something new. This would have been something dynamic and it's not really huge compared to the imperial temples, but it is something that is making the grand statement and this temple gets its close to the first marble temple down the street in the Circus Fominius and today's Jewish ghetto dedicated to the temple of Jupiter Statois. Already with the conquest of Corinth and Carthage, this is the mindset bringing in, bringing in foreign, foreign stone. As good as what they have in the Greek world, we have it now in Rome and then probably the most costly structure not to ever forget is the Aquamarcha, which is just an massive enterprise, Herculean effort, big engineering, biggest, most complex aqueduct to date that the Romans build. When did they build it? By 140. Where's the money coming from? From the conquest of Corinth and Carthage. Okay, political, cultural ramifications, a lot of new money, brings a lot of new opportunities. Think about luxury goods. Brain is now being imported from new locations such as Sicily from the Second Punic War coming also. Eventually going to be buying into that market in Egypt before they conquer it. Slade trading is going to be massive. Delos is a famous island in one of the Greek islands, the Sicily Islands, where they're saying that the Romans are trading up to 10,000 slaves a day. There's all kinds of real estate speculation because the Romans don't have a lot of land. So what are you going to do with that land? Farm estates, you're going to tax contract out and tax the people and tax their land, bring revenue into Rome. So everything is just snowballing. The good times are rolling and a lot of that wealth is coming into one city, is coming into Rome. And with each victory, you have the prominence of the generals raised, their profiles, their family profiles raised, which means there's going to be more competition because there aren't that many general ships to get. So families' profiles can be enhanced, glory to the family, glory to the state. And one of the key ways in which you're going to do that is to be the general realm, win the big war and come back and celebrate with a triumph to really distinguish yourself and set yourself apart from your peers. So these are some of the ideas and concepts that come with the conquest of Carthage and Corinth underlining just how pivotal 146 BC was in the history of ancient Rome.