Current Sexual Corruption Like Ancient Roman Lifestyle

a reply to: loveguy

aye exactly they are lost in their ego , and the ego demands more every time

a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

Would someone, anyone, anywhere, please tell me a time in history when weaker members of society (ie woman, girls and boys) have not been subject to harrassment and rape??????

When did that 3 minute interval occurr exactly???

a reply to: TiredofControlFreaks

Not a place or time, but perhaps culture??. more than likely "some" non stratified societies , perhaps like the Batwa AkA Pygmies and the Khoisan AkA bushmen..once you get into chiefs, priest, kings, emperors all bets are off.

Perhaps this type of thing has gone on in all cultures throughout time and my comparison is without merit. I'd like some reference material that could verify that position. Otherwise it's an all or nothing type of scenario, either it has happened all the time, everywhere, or the Romans were particularly bad about it and we continue the tradition of sexual exploitation. Either way it would be interesting.

a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

primal instincts

We humans are, it seems, congenital lovers, natural sensation seekers, limitless sources of eros, essentially sexual beings. Sexuality is part of our fate. What we do with it decides our destiny. The uncanny power of sex to motivate and drive us to seek sexual satisfaction must not be underestimated in our post-Freudian sexual liberation. This sexual power can be both creative (and procreative) or destructive to self and others. It is, by definition, irrational, irrepressible and unrelenting. As a key component of the daimonic, sex and eros demand some expression. What we do (or don't do) with this sexual energy determines who and what we become, what kind of relationships we create, and how we express ourselves in the world. And, of course, collectively, whether we as a species survive.

I was looking for primal instincts in psychology. There's probably more and better articles.
Hope this helps.

originally posted by: tadaman
a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

Actually, our generation of leaders supposedly worship Baal. A Cartheginian god /lifestyle.

The gods of Rome were transposed from Greece which were transposed from the ME such as Babylon. Carthage took their religion from there too, including Baal.

a reply to: Quetzalcoatl14

True, but there was a clean slate once carthage was destroyed. Their gods didnt make it into the Roman pantheon because they were not only conquered but obliterated from their dawn to their end.

Baal was a god the Romans had particular distaste for since part of the propaganda of the day and cause for the first punic war was the supposed sacrifice of children to the god Baal. (Captured Roman children and Carthaginian children alike)

This was exagerated and probably used only as a pretense for escalation before the actual war over Sicily was started by the Mamertines.

These disloyal mercinaries took over their clients city of Massana and then asked both Rome and Carthage to help them hold their new base of operations against the king of Syracuse. Rome was their second choice but that was enough for Rome to get involved directly.

Before this incident and heavily after the third punic war, there was a state sponsored effort to paint the gods of Carthage as vile and savage.

So much so that this sentiment STILL found its way into the Catholic faith when Rome went Christian.

The subject of Carhages pantheon was associated with demonology and dark arts. To this day that is still true.

originally posted by: tadaman
a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

Actually, our generation of leaders supposedly worship Baal. A Cartheginian god /lifestyle.

I've recently determined that the American Empire most closely resembles the Carthaginian Empire in its general international scope & function. Theirs was more of a naval derived mercantile modus operandi which is what US has become (although it did start following the more pure Roman style)

BUT, the Propaganda Model is more of a direct adaptation from the Roman. Carthage died in much part to lacking not only the entertainment industrial complex Rome made of the slaves etc, but the lack of belonging delivered in group oriented monuments (personal bathtubs in ones home in Carthage versus Rome did all big public bathhouses instead, for starters). It just wasnt the same kind of "immortal" ideal that Rome was in the end; that the death of the capital homeland didnt become the everlasting rally cry of the martyr. It just effing died.

Of course the imperialist model parallels help make it all too convenient for Americant's to continue to overlook Carthage even in this more "enlightened" era when we now know enough to lack the excuse to otherwise act like that never happened; that Rome itself didnt steal as many of its limelights from them as they did from Greece. Because afterall we're completely hopelessly bent on pretending we're not the world's preeminent hegemonic empire to such degrees that even when reflecting on Rome we do it with romanticism is if it too wasnt the evil empire that it was. After all, when we do acknowledge the tyrannical monsters that they were, well look we clearly arent that we arent overtly goosestepping right over top of and occupying every other people out there like the Romans did, snarf snarf!

As to the topic, I fear its getting to that level of decadence a little closer now across the society as a whole despite the lack of 'proper slavery' at this stage. Well thought. To the idea 'no that was the Greeks' sounds like stereotypical superstition to me. The Romans were a bunch of penis worshipers (look up Pompeii). Which Baal is too often worshiped symbolically, after all. Dont forget the Romans absorbed everything / everyone they conquered; and exploitation was their true sport.

a reply to: IgnoranceIsntBlisss

Good points. There is strong evidence that the Rome we know today to have been born after Carthage was based off the ruins and discoveries of Carrhage. From Roman cement to their heated baths. Crazy huh.

Also, another similarity between Carthage and us is the decline of Carthage due to over political internal struggles.

They had to hire everyone since loyalty wasnt part of the model. Not to the state but rather loyalty to family and immediate community came first.

Remember Hannibal was denied his victory by Carthage out of fear of his return to Carthage in absolute glory. His brothers were denied a naval access to Italy to help Hannibal.

Reinforcements were denied to Iberia which Hannibal's family made into a new powerhouse that only they controlled. No help was given to Hannibal except to bring his undefeated army home to defend an already lost city...... So they could all die as rich young men.

The Barcas were hated by Rome as conquerors and by the political class of Carthage as competition.

Rome itself was a POS mass of straw buildings and stone clops with small spaces in the middle....until they brought the achievements of Carthage home. Then Rome was rebuilt in marble, brick and cement.

Sounds familiar?

LoL

originally posted by: tadaman
a reply to: Quetzalcoatl14

True, but there was a clean slate once carthage was destroyed. Their gods didnt make it into the Roman pantheon because they were not only conquered but obliterated from their dawn to their end.

Roman temples were found with Carthaginian gods as the entirety enshrined (see Richard Miles).

While the Roman gods the lot of them were adaptations from other folks gods, more or less (see Manly P. Hall; the Bible).

originally posted by: JoshuaCox
a reply to: tadaman

According to who, lol???

Alex Jones..

Actually, with my latest realizations I'd love to hear what AJ has to say on the Carthaginian equation versus the modern era. Love him or hate him, more mad prophet or more lunatic, his footings on historical contexts for today shouldnt so quickly be brushed off while thats the angle to his trip that you might come to appreciate why hes so freaked out about all the BS that's evermore going on in our "civilization". Ergo, if you think we're just so super duper special that history is NOT the precise place to look in attempting to understand who and what we are then you're more deluded than AJ could ever be. Homo sapiens yet forever all live by the patterns laid out behind us, as we shall unless we get right with this code that is literally in our own genes (assuming we manage to before this pattern causes our own extinction which every day that passes the closer that inevitability becomes mandatory).

a reply to: IgnoranceIsntBlisss

That may be true, but there was not much respect for Carthage's culture in general. There was a distortion, not a preservation.

The myth of Carthage's founding was reformed into Dido being a heartbroken rabid woman who scorned her lover Romulus for abandoning her to go found Rome, which made Carthage extra hostile to Rome since its dawn. This was the rewritten account according to Roman poets.

In Roman plays, and for centuries mind you, we thought the spoken parts of Carthaginian language recorded were actual samplings from their language. It turns out it was all Gibberish. Romans wanted to make Carthage sound like absurd idiots to anyone who saw any interaction between a Carthaginian and a Roman in a play.

In short, they kept the Carthaginian culture around, but only so as to fully humiliate it, distort it, and make it into the culture of fools and enemies.

Also, pilgrims bring allot of money. A shrine costs nothing next to its returns.

a reply to: tadaman

So true.



I will add though, after weeks of exhaustive review of every documentary that can be acquired via the interwebs at the moment, that Roman geopolitical pressure helped ensure Hannibal ate the big one when it came down to that Moment of Truth. So ironic and astounding that Rome couldnt actually conjure up in their homeland the force needed to expel him, but surrounding Carthage Proper they were able to do just that just enough gun to the head pressure the Carthaginian aristocracy to rejecting Hannibal at the very moment he could have crushed their usurpers.

From what I've been mulling over, anyways, I havent found indications that Carthage society was so hellbent on exemplifying those traits which you underscored, as the Romans did. Those same traits that when inherently eventually taken to their logical climax manifested in the destruction of Roman "republicanism". Those traits which all humans should constantly obsess about both admiring yet walking in caution where if ridden instead in ignorance we should expect no better than Roman's in AD17 found themselves with. At least they then didnt have history as a guiding light, in their hind sightical excuse. We wont be afforded such a luxury assuming we dont...

a reply to: tadaman

Ah yes, their propaganda campaign against them was absolutely breathtaking I've come to learn of recent. Well done, assholes! LOL they truly were marvelous dynamos at that enterprise. So much so that I've been getting the idea that that more than anything else is what they should be accredited with besides sheer adaptability taken to extremes.

a reply to: IgnoranceIsntBlisss

Its such a crazy subject with so many useful parallels to our own time.

I just wanted to add that Hannibal and Scipio Africanus DID respect each other and actually formed a real friendship during Hannibal's twilight years after he left Carthage. When they first met it must have felt like the whole earth was too small for them to stand face to face.

Rome tried to force Hannibal out of Italy a couple times, but after the battle of Cannae they went back to guerrilla tactics which bought them time to take the fight to Carthage's gates. Fabian strategies are still the only way to go when you cant use your numerical advantage over a hardened smaller force. Its something we should consider for today's war on terror.

God I love this subject. Thanks for the convo!


EDIT TO ADD:
Some reading material you might like:

www.iwar.org.uk...

a reply to: Spider879

not really buying that stratified culture thing either....examples of africans having sex with babies to ensure virginity and cure their own HIV. Often the newest baby is just the neighbour's kid.

Actually, in a number of such societies, sex with children and woman would not be judged as a bad thing because it increased population

North American Indian tribes gained wealth and alcohol by trading wives etc

You think muslim woman and girls wearing burka's are safe???? Notice rape is quite common.

In any society, woman and girls/boys will seek security using sex as well

a reply to: tadaman

Interesting!

Aside from that 'there was a Carthage and Rome effed them up', and 'some general named Hannibal was wicked badass', I'venever much acknowledged Carthage enough to get into this stuff. But my ridiculously epic 'documentary' film project, The Darkest Patterns, finally gone critical in focus after 11 years of ritual of preparations... My actual intentions with it isnt to make the most exhaustive historical work in terms of the whos and whats that ever happened and make good story, but rather to do 'all that' with direct focus on all the expected patterns of the future with the past as the guide stones. So who someone like Hannibal was, more specifically how he died, arent the kind of details of the 'pieces' I'm scouring for in doing this. But following my stringent methodology, trying to figure out how the f did he go down after that reign of in your face terror did become a obligatory side fascination of mine recently. Where the societal kind of parallels are more my Obsession, I kept trying to avoid personal details of Hannibal, whom sadly for the Carthaginians we know more about him that the rest of them combined (if documentary & cinema films are to be the judge anyways).

originally posted by: tadaman

Rome tried to force Hannibal out of Italy a couple times,

Its so weird looking in focus at the momentum, the forces, the years spent tearing across the countryside unchecked, the map plots from their travels, that both Hannibal and Spartacus enjoyed, you'd think that Rome had the most insurmountable walls ever devised by man or something. Which just was never the case from anything I've seen, so it just seems like at any moment Rome is going down embarrassingly as you scratch and sniff at these periods.

originally posted by: AngelicIRage
a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

...people worship porn more than they worship Honor...

P = please
O = orgasm
R = right
N = now

How else can you if you wear clothes?!

Nevermind.

Great stuff guys.

Thanks for the deep analysis, very cool.

originally posted by: tadaman
a reply to: Quetzalcoatl14

True, but there was a clean slate once carthage was destroyed. Their gods didnt make it into the Roman pantheon because they were not only conquered but obliterated from their dawn to their end.

Baal was a god the Romans had particular distaste for since part of the propaganda of the day and cause for the first punic war was the supposed sacrifice of children to the god Baal. (Captured Roman children and Carthaginian children alike)

This was exagerated and probably used only as a pretense for escalation before the actual war over Sicily was started by the Mamertines.

These disloyal mercinaries took over their clients city of Massana and then asked both Rome and Carthage to help them hold their new base of operations against the king of Syracuse. Rome was their second choice but that was enough for Rome to get involved directly.

Before this incident and heavily after the third punic war, there was a state sponsored effort to paint the gods of Carthage as vile and savage.

So much so that this sentiment STILL found its way into the Catholic faith when Rome went Christian.

The subject of Carhages pantheon was associated with demonology and dark arts. To this day that is still true.

No doubt. But what I'm saying is aren't there ancient links between the pantheon that went from Babylon to Greece to Rome and also the gods that went to Carthage via the Phoenicians? Baal has a lot of parallels with other gods in the Ancient near east, right?

Also, was the cause of the first Punic War actually child sacrifice, or was that useful propaganda to help motivate the population. I do understand that there was child sacrifice. I had thought the Punic War had more to do with the fact that Rome and Carthage's burgeoning empires were encroaching on each other. At one point Carthage had more control of the Mediterranean right?