Why Was Carthage Such a Threat to Rome? Interview with Dr. Bret Devereaux, Part 2

Tides of History

Wondery / Patrick Wyman

Documentary, Society & Culture, History

4.8 • 6.3K Ratings

🗓️ 22 May 2025

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Dr. Bret Devereaux returns to the show to discuss why, exactly, Carthage was such a threat to the Roman Republic. The answer lies in the fact that more than any other state in the ancient world, Carthage most closely resembled Rome.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Tides of History early and ad-free right now.
0:04.6	Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.
0:12.0	Hi, everybody. From Wondery, welcome to another episode of Tides of History. I'm Patrick Wyman. Thanks
0:21.0	much for being here with me today. Now, we've spent a lot of time on Tides over the last
0:25.6	couple of years talking about Rome. There are good reasons for this. Rome did, in fact, become
0:30.9	the hegemonic power of the Mediterranean world. The Romans founded an empire that lasted for centuries
0:35.8	and forever shaped everything from language to political ideas to law to consumer habits.
0:41.2	But far too often, that focus on Rome, however justified by the course of future events,
0:46.4	tends to drown out the complexity and contingency of the world in which the city rose to
0:50.8	power in the first place.
0:53.7	Rome had rivals. Those rivals weren't pushovers,
0:57.2	especially Carthage. Carthage pushed Rome to the brink in their first conflict and came closer
1:02.5	than any other opponent to actually bringing down the Roman state in their second. We're talking
1:07.4	about a city that had been around for more than 500 years, that had been an imperial power for longer than Rome had, and yet they're an afterthought or a speed bump
1:15.8	in Rome's way.
1:17.4	We're going to try a different approach, and in so doing, we're going to try to answer one
1:21.2	fundamental question.
1:22.8	What made Carthage such a dangerous adversary for Rome?
1:26.7	That's what we're going to try to figure out
1:28.1	today. We couldn't hope to have a better guest than we do to understand these things.
1:34.2	Dr. Brett Devereaux returns for his second appearance on Tides of History after one of my favorite
1:38.6	interviews ever just a couple of months ago. Dr. Devereaux is teaching assistant professor of history
	...

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