"Let them eat cake" - Legacy of Ba'al

A letter to the Senate of Rome

From: Consules Gaius Terentius Varro et Lucius Aemilius Paullus
To: Senatus Populusque Romanus

Patrii et Conscripti Salvete. Having chased the Punic mercenary army from central Italy, we have cornered them near Teranto. The perfidious cyclops seems to think the obstreperous cities of Greater Greece will lend him succor. As Pyrrus has learned during his ill-fated adventure into Italy, the cyclops will find little in the way of material support, other than lofty words from the effete Hellenes.

The Punic rabble had exhausted its supplies and was heading towards our grain silos in Cannae. The thieving scum, true to his mercantile heritage, hopes to feed his mercenary band at our expense. His eagerness at securing the potential ill-gotten gains, as well as his recognition in being outmatched by the double Consular army, has caused the trickster to blunder into being trapped between the Aufidus river and our position.

Despite the numerical superiority of the Gemini Consular Legions of Roman Republic and Confederate Allies, our army is composed of raw recruits. Only Marcus Minucius’ 10 or so cohorts has experienced battle, thus, we have decided to forego the traditional maniple stagger formation for the more Hellenic phalanx organization in our deployment. What we lose in mobility will be compensated by the increase in unit cohesion and morale. We will offer battle on an unobstructed plain near Cannae to neutralize any Punic ambuscades upon which the cyclops depends for his victory. Without the usual Punic perfidy, the superior discipline of the Legion will crush the disorderly mercenary rabble.

As the Primus Cohort has twice penetrated through the Punic encirclements at Trebia and Trasimene, they will be placed at the center of the principes line around, which the 10 veteran cohorts will form. The battle plan is simple. We will use the hastati phalanx line to smash the African spears into disruption, upon which the principes led by the Primus Cohort and the reserve of triarii will break-through the shattered African lines. The forces of our confederate allies will push the Spanish and Gallic rabble off of our flanks, while the Legion breaks the Africans apart. As the mercenary rabble has no avenue of retreat, unless they imagine that they can bribe the potamoi, the entire Punic army will be destroyed in tomorrow’s engagement.

Every Roman soldier is loyal to the Republic and every allied auxiliaries is committed to the confederation, unlike the pleonectic Punic merchant band to whom fidelity is just another foreign word. Be assured of our victory, for the gods will not forsake us. We will bring the head of the cyclops to the Senate halls after tomorrow. Then we shall march onto Syracuse, and then onto Carthage.

Valete.

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Image Credit: Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=448620

The only thing more expensive than a war won, is a war lost.
(If a Ferengi didn’t say it, then he ought to have.)

Assemblage of Ba’al, New Town, Africa

Cling, clang, clung echoed the thousands of golden rings throughout the assemblage hall. Mago, in the expected Barcid theatrical gesture, had toppled one of the three chests that he ordered carried into the assemblage.

“Golden rings acquired from the dead equites at Cannae! Collecting them alone took us an entire day!”

Excited murmurs filled the hall.

“We have crushed the Roman resistance and only await the dissolution of their alliances. We need but additional resources to lead our forces to a successful conclusion of this venture!”

“What could Italy possibly offer us to commit our resources in supporting your private war?” Hanno pointedly questioned. “The Barcid gamble in carrying the war into Italy has cost the Iberian consortium its entire security force. The proceeds from Sagumtum barely covered for additional security operatives needed to be hired. The Iberian consortium already mortgaged the entire silver mine production for the next 5 years for the resources required to secure their holdings.”

“The war will not be decided in Iberia. Italy and Rome is where our resources need to be committed.” Mago counseled.

“If your reports are accurate,” commented Gisgo, “much of Italy has been destroyed in Barcid raids. It will take a decade or more to recoup our investments from burnt Italian soil.”

“It was necessary tactic in our war against Rome, who apparently can muster numberless armies.” Mago replied.

“Pray that your next tactic isn’t to turn gold into iron,” Gisgo replied absently.

“We are making significant progress in Sicily,” interjected Luli the leader of the East Maritime Company, “with Hieronymus supporting our cause, the Romans can be finally driven-off the island.”

“Luli, your faction has been promising the entirety of Sicily since the time of Dido! It was your foolhardy adventurism that had cost us the Eastern Islands in the first place!” Hanno thundered. “You have already lost your faction’s entire naval security component and are borrowing security forces of mercantile interests in Thapsus and Hippo Regius. Your consortium is bankrupt!”

“Once we gain Sicily . . .”

“Enough! The war is against Rome. Italy is the main focus of our war efforts!” Mago interrupted.

“It is a Barcid war. A personal vendetta that is of little interest to the greater interest of Carthage.” Hanno commented.

“When have you, Hanno, given any thought beyond your self-interest?” Retorted Mago.

“Do the Romans pay their security operatives in gold rings? Why are there so many?” Asked Bomilcar.

“No these are from equites, a lower ranking part of their nobility. Some rings are from the senatores as well.” Mago answered.

“So the Romans have already paid us tribute?” Bomilcar questioned.

“No, the Senate of Rome refuses to parlay with us. These are from their dead at Cannae.”

“Their aristocrats fight as security operatives? How . . odd . . .” reflected Bomilcar.

“To the Romans, military service is a sacred civil and religious obligation.”

“What strange, uncivilized people . . .”

“Though your brother is called favored of Ba’al, perhaps he ought to be named votive of Melqart.” Hanno critiqued.

“The Barcids have no design to kingship!” Mago defended.

“Don’t they? After the African Consortium transfers its security detachments to Barcid control, then what? If the Romans, as you claim, are defeated, then the only use for such force would be to consolidate Barcid position in Carthage. We did not escape the tyranny of Pygmalion and Alexander, only to be enslaved by Hannibal.”

“Your paranoia will have us be enslaved by the Romans!”

“So you claim. All I can perceive is the Barcids and Iberian Consortium attempting to use African resources for their European expansion, all the while destroying already established commerce network. The loss of trade revenue to Carthage alone will take two of your lifetimes to recover!”

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He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby becomes a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee. (Friedrich Nietzsche)

Fifty years after the conclusion of the Second Punic War, Rome destroyed Carthage and ritually cursed the site of her ruins. One-hundred years after the destruction of Carthage, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus demolished settlements that had formed in the cursed ground near the ruins of Carthage, thus continuing the solemn commitment of his forebears. Historians debate whether Rome would have continued to exist, had Hannibal immediately marched and besieged Rome. Yet, the Rome after Cannae and the Punic Wars was not the same Rome of Regulus, Fabius, Flaminius, and Varro. Rather, the Rome of Latium Republic and Etruscan confederate alliance died in the fertile planes of Cannae, along with their communal aristocracy and citizen soldiers.

The new Rome that birthed from the ashes of Cannae was a Rome of factionalism, mercantile plutocracy, and tumultuous populism. Having lost 20% of their population, the denuded Roman Senate was eager to circumvent tradition and custom in appointing a youth without any formal civilian office to be virtual military hierarch over the armies in Iberia. His military success and meteoric political ascendence would be the example emulated by all future populist dictators of Rome. Acquisition of vast territories, in conjunction with the destruction of Italian farmlands, laid the foundation for vast wealth inequality leading to the transformation of Rome from a Republic to a Plutocracy. The destruction of an entire class of citizens, the independent small farmer, led to disintegration of society into factions dependent upon patrons for economic support. Whether Hannibal was aware, he effectively destroyed Rome as an ideologic and social entity. The new Rome would be a hollow thing, aping the mercantile avarice of Carthage, dying a slow, millennial death, under the fury of her populist kings.

The Libertarian ideology leads to similar path of social dissolution. A social policy of unrestrained mercantile wealth accumulation ultimately leads not to liberty but serfdom and slavery. As social consensus is increasingly purchased by the few who own avenues of information and finance, a society devolves into ruling mercantile factions bickering over short-term profits, with the governed masses brawling over crumbs and scraps. The dictatorial presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt killed the last vestige of representative government in the United States. The brilliant atomic blasts over Hiroshima and Nagasaki signaled not only an end of Japanese militarism, but also the end of US civic society. Fascism had consolidated private industry into semi-state operated industrial conglomerates; the US in her war with fascism had adopted and surpassed the fascist method, without actually incorporating the underlying ideology. Thus, like Rome, the government of the US is a hollow thing, dying a slow, millennial death.

The end of the Second World War witnessed an aberration in US military politics. Unlike the previous wars, the massive war apparatus was not dismantled at the successful conclusion of the war. Instead, the war-machine was maintained and sent immediately abroad for foreign adventures and occupation. But more importantly, the commercial industries and conglomerates were maintained. The milk conglomerate, for instance, refused to disband, even as the reality of such vast milk production during peace time would have been ludicrous. Instead, the milk conglomerates purchased the services of USDA to formulate the so-called “food pyramid,” a highly effective propaganda and advert tool for milk product overconsumption. So effective was the advert scheme that to this day, US citizenry, and increasingly much of the world, blindly consume milk and milk products beyond sound nutritional paradigm.

Similarly, the automobile industry used its conglomerate power to redesign the entire US infrastructure with inefficient highways. For they too refused to reduce production and required increased consumption based upon social restructuring. So effective is the automobile industry’s social engineering, that the US citizenry has no cognitive dissonance with the reality of life, in which automobile ownership has become a necessity to survival, solely due to infrastructure architecture.

Certain ideas and social paradigm are so toxic that they must be eradicated from human consciousness. Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam shouted Cato the Censor with every Senate meeting, for fifty years, until the final destruction of Carthage. The warning is not merely a call to action against a Punic city across the Mediterranean, but an exhortation against the very mercantile ideology and mercenary attitude of the new Romans that vegetated the Senate halls. The worship of money had killed the Roman Republic. The modern West seem to be also dying the death of those who follow Ba’al, bartering her culture, legacy, and identity for financial power.