Phoenician Myths by Zeljko Prodanovic (great reads .txt) 📕

‘One day, I went to see the prisoners from the battle of Canae and among them I came across a young man with a book in his hands. At first I looked at him, surprised, then asked him what he was reading.
‘ ‘History,’ he replied, ‘by Herodotus from Halicarnassus.’
‘Interesting,’ I said, then added, ‘And what does Herodo- tus say?’
‘Herodotus is the father of history, sir,’ the young man answered. ‘And in this book he describes the dramatic clash between Greeks and Persians, or if you like, between Europe and Asia. Here is, for example, what the great Greek says at the beginning of his book:
‘Here Herodotus from Halicarnassus displays his investigations, so that the achievements of men do not remain forgotten in time and that the great and glorious deeds of both – Greeks and barbarians – do not remain without glory. And especially to show why the two peoples fought against each other.’
‘And what does Herodotus say, young man?’ I said. ‘Why did the two peoples fight against each other?’
‘It’s a long story, sir,’ the young man answered. ‘It all began a long, long time ago. One day the Phoenicians raped some girls from Lesbos, but the Greeks, unfortunately, could do nothing about it, because they did not know where the Phoenicians had gone. It then was repeated on Rhodes and other islands as well.
‘When he saw that the Phoenicians were getting away with this, the Trojan prince Paris went to Greece and stole the beautiful Helen, the wife of the Spartan king Menelaus. This time, however, the Greeks knew were the girl was taken, so they raised an army and set off for Troy. And this is how the glorious war between the Greeks and the Trojans began, the war that Homer from Lydia described in such a moving way. As I said, the war lasted ten years. Eventually, the Greeks cunningly and with the favour of gods defeated Trojans, and then razed Troy to the ground.
‘And several centuries later the Phoenicians arrived in Greece again – probably with the intention to rape some more girls – but this time the Greeks managed to intercept them and sink their galleys. And the Persians, who disliked the Greeks, could hardly wait for it. They raised an army and under the excuse of protecting the Phoenicians, set off to Greece. And so began this famous war, which Herodotus, in his History, depicted in such an exciting way.’
‘Interesting,’ I said. ‘But if I understood you well, young man, the Phoenicians were to blame for both wars.’
‘Unfortunately, sir, that’s true.’
‘And who is to blame for this war?’ I asked.
‘Which war?’ the young man said.
‘The one you and I are involved in, or if you like, the war between Carthage and Rome.’
‘As far as I know, sir, it all began when the Phoenicians from Messina raped some girls from Neapolis.’
‘So, the Phoenicians are to blame again.’
‘It appears so, sir. You know, the interesting feature of history is that it repeats itself!’
‘Very interesting, young man,’ I said. ‘But tell me, since I see that you know about these things, what is, actually, history?’
And without wasting a second, he answered, ‘History, sir, is what you are doing right now – right now, you are writing history.’
I smiled and said, ‘What do you mean?’
‘History, sir, is written by victors,’ the young man an- swered. ‘And you have defeated us – I must say – in a brilliant way. And when, soon, you descend to Rome and raze her to the ground, as the Greeks did in Troy, you will write the last page of the glorious history of this city. You will then return home and Carthaginians will welcome you as a great general, who, in a victorious campaign, wiped off the face of earth one of the most beautiful cities in the world. And you will talk about your exploits and enjoy the fame, which – I must say – quite deservedly belongs to you.
‘So, that’s history, sir,’ the young man added, ‘the story about victories and defeats. He who survives tells the story, and that’s all. There is no wisdom in it or mercy.’
I smiled again and the young man, confused, looked at me and said, ‘Are you going to kill me, sir?’
‘I don’t know, young man,’ I said, ‘we shall see…’
‘And you ask me, Gargamel, what did I do. I ordered that the prisoners be released, then went on the hill beside the Tiber and looked once again at the marble city that lay before me. ‘Well, Romans,’ I said, ‘I will give you one more life. And you be careful how you spend it!’
‘And then I ordered a retreat.’

&

We should, perhaps, end the story of Hannibal here. We should leave what happened later in the darkness of the centuries long gone, we should not open the old wounds nor disturb the souls of those who burnt in the infinite circle of time. For what happened later is not a story, but life itself. More precisely, an unceasing and brutal struggle between life and death, or if you like, between good and evil.
So, Hannibal (han-Baal or the singing tear) returned to Carthage, which he had not seen for more than twenty years. Weary of the world and its glorious history, he went to a hill beside Carthage and began to cultivate his garden. He grew fig and orange trees and, as time went on, slowly forgot both Rome and the Romans. It seemed that the Romans had forgotten about him as well.
I say it seemed… For one day (Hannibal had already been in Baalbek a long time) the influential Roman senator Marcus Porcius Cato, better known as the ‘Censor’, arrived in Carthage. Many years ago, he had been among the prisoners from the battle of Canae. Although it is quite possible, I can’t reliably say that he was the young man with Herodotus’ History in his hands.
I don’t know why the Censor came to Carthage, how long he stayed there, or what he saw, but here is what he did when he returned to Rome: he immediately went to the senate and declared, ‘Carthage must be destroyed!’
When the surprised senators asked him what he was talking about, he briefly said, ‘A new Hannibal is rising in Carthage. And now you tell me: Do you want to sit here and wait for him to arrive again at the gates of Rome and say, ‘What now Romans?’ Do you want to tremble before him again like birch trees in the young wind or are you going to do something to prevent it? So, I repeat – Carthage must be destroyed!’
And indeed, in a matter of days the Romans raised a huge army and set off for Carthage. At the head of the army was Aemilianus Scipio, grandson of the same Cornelius Scipio, whom Hannibal had defeated in the battle of Trebia, many years ago.
So one morning the Roman galleys arrived at the port of Carthage, and before the Carthaginians could realize what was going on, the Romans had already burst through the gates of the city. And what did they do? As you may have guessed – they killed all the Carthaginians and set the city on fire.
And while the purple flames were cutting up the gentle Carthaginian sky, Marcus Porcius Cato and Aemilianus Scipio stood on a hill watching this frightful sight. And when, in the dusk of the sunny day, the last flame faded away, the Censor quietly smiled. ‘That’s how you do it, Scipio,’ he said. ‘You come, you see and you burn it! There is no wisdom in it or mercy.’

&

This was – oh, heavenly eye – the story of a city and its people. Of Carthage and Carthaginians, who, in their innocence, allowed the weak and wicked to not only surpass and defeat them, but to erase them from the face of earth. Glory to those who burnt in the infinite circle of time. Eternal is only Baal and the sun that he has given us!

The Stoic, the Consul and the Harp Player

This is a story about the complexity of dramatic circumstances that interlaced the fate of a Phoenician with the fates of two lunatics. Although one could say that this is only the Roman version of the Greek story of Alexander the Great and Diogenes, we will tell it nevertheless.
One day a young man wrapped in a purple toga arrived at the oracle of Baalbek and asked for the prophetess with a tear in her eye. ‘I am Gaius Julius Caligula,’ the young man said, ‘the new Roman emperor. And you, my beauty, must certainly know why I have come – I want you to reveal to me the secret of eternal life.’
‘My emperor,’ the prophetess said, ‘only Phoenix has the power to be reborn.’
‘Why only him?’ the young man asked.
‘Because Baal, the oldest of all gods, wanted it to be so.’
‘You mean Bacchus?’ the young man said.
‘Yes, emperor, Bacchus.’
Of course, Nefertiti knew that it was a misunderstanding. She was referring to Baal, the Phoenician sun god, and the young man was talking about Bacchus, one of the lesser Roman gods, whose feasts, so called Bacchanalia, had been forbidden in Rome for a number of centuries. But why should she argue with the crazy young man, to whom the great shining eye so incautiously assigned the role of Roman emperor.
‘So, it’s very simple, emperor,’ Nefertiti said. ‘All you have to do is proclaim the god of love and wine, Bacchus, the supreme deity.’
‘And then I’ll live forever?’ the young man asked.
‘Yes,’ Nefertiti replied. ‘Bacchus will then, out of gratitude, give you eternal life.’
When he arrived in Rome, Caligula – to the amazement of the Romans – erected a statue of Bacchus in the middle of the Pantheon and proclaimed Bacchanalia the supreme holiday. ‘There is no other god but Bacchus,’ he said, ‘and I am his messenger!’ On one of Rome’s hills he built a temple dedicated to ‘the unsurpassed god of debauchery’ and asked Romans to send their most beautiful daughters to his temple.
When he heard one day that the Romans were angry with him, Caligula was very surprised. ‘But wouldn’t it be a sin,’ he said, ‘to let such beautiful girls fade in solitude, instead of bearing children to the most divine man?’
Thus Caligula did follies in Rome and the Romans kept silent, shaking their heads in disbelief. The only one who dared to speak up was Seneca, the famous philosopher-stoic from Cordoba. When he was asked, one day, what he thought of the young emperor, his answer was brief, ‘Fortunate is he who goes mad early on…’
And soon Caligula amazed the Romans again.
‘I’m not happy at all with what’s happening in Antioch,’ he said. ‘So,