The Phoenician Legacy

What I was getting at is that a Carthaginian empire which expands out of the western Mediterranean and/or lasts for a long time, while possible, is not guaranteed or even necessarily likely even if you remove the Italians as a threat.

They also absorb the west coast of Morocco and parts of the Arabian sea. Before that they get into a fight with the Ptolemies and conquer it to control the Egypt area along with the Nile.
 
They also absorb the west coast of Morocco and parts of the Arabian sea. Before that they get into a fight with the Ptolemies and conquer it to control the Egypt area along with the Nile.

That's fine and all if you want a TL where Carthage replaces Rome, but what Caliburdeath is saying is that Rome's fall won't always = Carthaginian Empire instead, and actually is unlikely.

It's like saying if France wins the Seven Years War that New France will absorb the British colonies in 9 out of 10 scenarios (which would actually never happen unless an earlier POD massively changes their populations, but this is besides the point).

Word to the wise, if you want to brainstorm with others on here about how Carthage could grow into TTL's equivalent to Rome, you should state this right away in the thread. Just suggesting a POD, and then jumping to conclusions on the outcome and listing off conquests isn't going to draw folks to collaborate.
 
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We won't be using the phoenician but a Greek based on. The latin alphabet which we currently is based of of a western Greek variant. The problem with using an alphabet designed to write a Semitic language is the lack of signs for vowels. There were at least 5-6 alphabets in use in Spain and Italy at the time
whch wr bttr dptd t wrttng rpn lnggs thn th phncn lphbts.
 
We won't be using the phoenician but a Greek based on. The latin alphabet which we currently is based of of a western Greek variant. The problem with using an alphabet designed to write a Semitic language is the lack of signs for vowels. There were at least 5-6 alphabets in use in Spain and Italy at the time
whch wr bttr dptd t wrttng rpn lnggs thn th phncn lphbts.

I don't know about Hebrew and Phoenician, or Punic, but if Arabic is anything to base it on they can still express vowels in writing, they're simply not 'letters'.
 
I don't know how you could create a history with a PoD that far back. Take out Rome and the Western world would be so radically different. China and India probably wouldn't change too much (at least up until the Europeans starting mucking around over there), but there would be a monumental impact on Europe, Africa and western Asia.

Indeed! However

There's a really great timeline on exactly your POD, called Xamm Anim. It went through a few incarnations as its creator, Monopolist, did a lot of fantastic work. Here's links to the 3rd and 4th versions. Check them out!

Hope this helps! :)

Cheers,
Ganesha

I haven't following Xamm Anim, so I can't say how good a timeline it is. I have been of late following The Weighted Scales: The World of an Aborted Rome, by Errnge. Here the focus is not on Carthage, but on what might happen if Rome were eliminated (here, by Gaulish invaders). As it happens Errnge also has an aversion to wanking any given Hellenistic age power so Carthage will assuredly not become the center of a mighty Mediterranean empire--it does however survive well into the second millennium CE (the timeline has an alternate Common Era, but one that starts just seven years before (IIRC) our own). Not only Carthage but every other wannabe imperial power gets frustrated or diverted so there never is any global overarching empire whatsoever, just more or less big kingdoms that last for a while then shrink or fall.

Now there's no objective way of measuring whether this is good AH or not; I don't think Errnge indulges in any really implausible howlers and events do seem to evolve plausibly by cause and effect. He has certainly set himself a monumental task, having to evolve a whole alternate Europe (and already in his timeline, centuries yet before the Common Era would retrospectively be set, India is quite seriously butterflied, so it would be more like a whole Alternate Old World before we get to 1500, and by then the Carthaginians (!) have discovered the New World, so it's a whole alternate Earth. He's only a few centuries on but there are "flashforwards" to a story in Italy around 1500, and I think he's doing a fair job.

I should note that years ago when Errnge was trying to start the original version of this, I was quite a naysayer--I wasn't against his POD or concept but it did seem inevitable to me that someone would consolidate a Mediterranean empire, and I argued that case. Carthage was my favorite suspect of course. I had people slapping me down for both assumptions. So I lost interest and only recently have come back to see what Errnge did with it all, and am obviously impressed.

So, it would seem that timelines of such depth and scope are indeed possible, although obviously anyone can cavil at how good a job the authors are doing.

As for Carthaginian Empire, that is apparently a bit cliche (there is after all an old Poul Anderson Time Patrol story about it, called IIRC "Deleneda Est") and if anything more conservative than what Errnge is doing. If the Carthaginians were to manage a Med Empire, presumably a lot of their policies would more or less echo what the Romans did, and so it becomes a matter of figuring out what Phoenician words correspond to familiar Latin and renaming everything; also for fun making up Punicoid languages to correspond to the Romance ones. Obviously just doing all that (which is plenty of work in and of itself, even for a linguist of the stature of a Tolkien) is a gawdawful amount of work to do right; to instead develop a plausible cause-and-effect chain of events that would take into account the deep differences between Carthage and Rome (remembering that others disbelieve Carthage had the potential to fill Rome's sandals at all) and how likely it would be to be completely different--well, that's even harder. But at least with a broad Empire spanning the Med world developments would still be broadly similar. Going down a plausibly different path where there is no such empire--Errnge has certainly taken on a big job!

Carthaginian Empire is easier, if perhaps less realistic.
 
Word to the wise, if you want to brainstorm with others on here about how Carthage could grow into TTL's equivalent to Rome, you should state this right away in the thread. Just suggesting a POD, and then jumping to conclusions on the outcome and listing off conquests isn't going to draw folks to collaborate.

Thanks for your input. I understand the end of Rome does not necessarily equal a Carthaginian empire- I'm just speculating that that might be the case. And if it is, then I am curious about exploring (however unlikely) the ramifications of such a change to our timeline.
I just wanted to see if anyone else was interested in joining me in having fun speculating and collaborating such a timeline up until to the modern day. I just wanted to take note from your ideas and incorporate them into my own as we go along.

I'm not exactly sure how I may have discouraged collaboration, but apologize if I have done so. All ideas are welcome. Any advice on how to engage this group more fruitfully would be welcome. I would hope people who want to engage here would at least buy into the possibility of Rome's complete annihilation. If you think it is an idea not worth exploring, then maybe exploring other timelines might be more rewarding for you.
 
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Speaking for myself, "Rome loses the Punic Wars and does not rise to its OTL dominance" is interesting.

But saying that this that and the other thing will happen as a consequence as if you have a time machine to speak authoritatively tends to come off as unwilling to listen to views that may or may not agree with any or all of that.
 

katchen

Banned
When we think about it, a Carthaginian Empire is unlikely because Carthage/Tunisia is too remote from major population centers to control anything for very long. And too vulnerable to climate change, which can turn areas that the population has been depending upon to feed itslef into sedert quite quickly. When we look at the rest of history, we don't ever see a successor empire to the Romans coming out of Tunis The closest thing we see is a Tunisian Emirate controlling Sicily and part of Southern italy for a couple hundred years. But Tunis was always falling under foreign domination, be it the Vandals, te Byzantines, the saracens, the Spanish, the Turks or lastly the French.
When North Africa DID conquer and hold Iberia, as it turns out, it is Amazigh people from Morocco (Mauretania , the Almoravids and later the Almohads who do it. So maybe a Mauretanian successor Empire to the Punics could dominate the Western Med perhaps from Volubis or Gades but Carthage? Highly unlikely. And as for a Celtic Empire, there we must overcome the clannishness and fractiousness of the Celts, shich is also unlikely. In the absence of Roman domination, look to gaul to A. Either evolve into a collection of small nations rather like the Caucasus, each with slightly different languages or dialects if the Gauls can increase their population quickly enough with mouldboard ploughs and horse collar agriculture and can remain unmolested or b) get conquered by various Germanic tribes and nations early. Maybe Arminus, lacking VCarus to test his mettle finds the Gauls of the Seine or Garrone Valley to be sitting ducks. Maye Vercigetorix leads a revolt, not against Romans but against Germans. Lots of possibilities here, and let's not assume that without Rome, everyone else will stay home and mind their own business. They probably won't. :(
 
Carthage was a major population center. And its not as if Rome is better located to control say, Damascus (to pick the other end of the Mediterranean).

So I'm not sure what post-400 AD events have to do with what could happen if Carthage wins the 2nd Punic War.
 
Thanks for your input. I understand the end of Rome does not necessarily equal a Carthaginian empire- I'm just speculating that that might be the case. And if it is, then I am curious about exploring (however unlikely) the ramifications of such a change to our timeline.
I just wanted to see if anyone else was interested in joining me in having fun speculating and collaborating such a timeline up until to the modern day. I just wanted to take note from your ideas and incorporate them into my own as we go along.

I'm not exactly sure how I may have discouraged collaboration, but apologize if I have done so. All ideas are welcome. Any advice on how to engage this group more fruitfully would be welcome. I would hope people who want to engage here would at least buy into the possibility of Rome's complete annihilation. If you think it is an idea not worth exploring, then maybe exploring other timelines might be more rewarding for you.

It's okay. You just weren't addressing what other people were saying, which doesn't evoke the collaborating spirit. Like I said, it's a possibility TTL's west could see Carthage as one of their great ancient civilizations that inspires them to the modern day, but it isn't a certain outcome. Exploring this could indeed be fun.

All I'm suggesting for you, so you don't get so ragged on would be to set out with the aim of a Carthaginian Empire in a thread rather than asking what would happen if Hannibal left Rome another pile of ruins that dots the Italian Peninsula. There's plenty of AH examples of having an aim, and then looking for a POD that let's you go down that course. Then there's just wondering what if say a battle went differently, or a person was born a different gender, or an important person died earlier, later, or perhaps did something else with their life.

That's all I'm trying to say, and I hope my advice helps you enjoy your time on this little corner of the internet.
 
When we think about it, a Carthaginian Empire is unlikely because Carthage/Tunisia is too remote from major population centers to control anything for very long. And too vulnerable to climate change, which can turn areas that the population has been depending upon to feed itself into desert quite quickly

It all depends with how successful the Phoenicians could've been sustaining themselves, considering their lifestyle of seafaring, trade and exploring new lands to colonize. It they did, maybe it would have not been the same kind of power Rome was, but still one to be reckoned with.
 
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Do you have any plans for them to spread down along the coast of Africa? If so will they discover Brazil ?
 
Do you have any plans for them to spread down along the coast of Africa? If so will they discover Brazil ?

I believe the Phoenicians traveling down Africa and setting up colonies there is much more likely than colonizing the New World as i previously assumed before joining this forum. Akin to how Rome spread civilization throughout Europe in OTL, Carthage could do so in both Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Instead of Carthage themselves sailing to Brazil, perhaps an African off-shoot of them will around the same time Columbus sailed across the Atlantic in our timeline.
 
I had an abortive thread where a remnant of Carthage went south down the coast of Africa. I think that it's perfectly possible. Any discovery of the Americas will be accidental. However that is in the area of the shortest crossing.
 
I had an abortive thread where a remnant of Carthage went south down the coast of Africa. I think that it's perfectly possible. Any discovery of the Americas will be accidental. However that is in the area of the shortest crossing.

Yes. More or less, this. They did have their hand in trading along (at least the more northerly parts of) West Africa, OTL.
 
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