Carthago delenda est

For the role-playing game, see Delenda est Carthago.

Cato the Elder (234–149 BC), the most persistent advocate in the Senate for the total destruction of Carthage, was associated with repeated use, in or out of its proper context, of the phrase Delenda est Carthago.

Ruins in Carthage

The location of Carthage in North Africa

Ceterum (autem) censeo Carthaginem esse delendam ("Furthermore, I consider Carthage to need to be destroyed"), often abbreviated to Carthago delenda est or delenda est Carthago ("Carthage must be destroyed"), is a Latin oratorical phrase pronounced by Cato the Elder, a politician of the Roman Republic. The phrase originates from debates held in the Roman Senate prior to the Third Punic War (149–146 BC) between Rome and Carthage. Cato is said to have used the phrase as the conclusion to all his speeches, to push for the war.

Historical background

Although Rome was successful in the first two Punic Wars, as it vied for dominance with the seafaring Punic city-state of Carthage in North Africa (now Tunisia), it suffered several humiliations and damaging reverses in the course of these engagements, especially at the Battle of Cannae in 216 BC. Rome nonetheless managed to win the Second Punic War thanks to Scipio Africanus in 201 BC. After its defeat, Carthage ceased to be a threat to Rome and was reduced to a small territory that was equivalent to what is now northeastern Tunisia.

However, Cato the Censor visited Carthage in 152 BC as a member of a senatorial embassy, which was sent to arbitrate a conflict between the Punic city and Massinissa, the king of Numidia. Cato, a veteran of the Second Punic War, was shocked by Carthage's wealth, which he considered dangerous for Rome. He then relentlessly called for its destruction and ended all of his speeches with the phrase, even when the debate was on a completely different matter. The Senate did not follow him, especially due to Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica Corculum, the son-in-law of Scipio Africanus and the most influential senator, being opposed to the war; Corculum argued that the fear of a common enemy was necessary to maintain Roman unity and keep the people in check. Like Cato, he ended all his speeches with the same phrase, "Carthage must be saved" (Carthago servanda est).

Cato finally won the debate after Carthage had attacked Massinissa, which gave a casus belli to Rome since the peace treaty of 201 BC prevented Carthage from declaring war without Rome's assent. In 146 BC, Carthage was razed by Scipio Aemilianus—Africanus's grandson—and its entire remaining population was sold into slavery, and Africa then became a Roman province. The notion that Roman forces then sowed the city with salt is a 19th-century invention.

Historical literary sources

No ancient source gives the phrase exactly as it is usually quoted in modern times. Its current form was made by English and French scholars at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, while German scholars have used the longer "Ceterum censeo Carthaginem delendam esse". Ancient authors quote the phrase as follow:

• Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History: "[Cato], cum clamaret omni senatu Carthaginem delendam, …"
• Aurelius Victor in his De viris illustribus: "[Marcus Porcius Cato] Carthaginem delendam censuit."
• Florus, in his Epitome of Livy: "Cato inexpiabili odio delendam esse Carthaginem … pronuntiabat."

Therefore, Pliny the Elder, Florus and the Pseudo Aurelius Victor quote the phrase Carthago delenda est in indirect speech.

Instead, only a paraphrastic translation is the Greek rendering of the Catonian phrase by Plutarch in his Life of Cato the Elder, 27: "Δοκεῖ δέ μοι καὶ Καρχηδόνα μὴ εἶναι" ("Videtur et hoc mihi, Carthaginem non debere esse"—"It seems best to me that Carthage no longer exist").

Modern usage

The phrase is sometimes fully adopted in modern usage and sometimes paraphrased, as a learned reference to the concept of total warfare. In 1673, the English minister Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury revived the phrase in the form "Delenda est Carthago" in a speech before Parliament during the Third Anglo-Dutch War, comparing England to Rome and the Dutch Republic to Carthage. In the 1890s, the London newspaper Saturday Review published several articles that expressed an anti-German sentiment, summed up in the quote Germania est delenda ("Germany must be destroyed"). In 1899, the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy retained the phrase's form "Carthago delenda est" for the title of a pacifist essay condemning war and militarism published in the liberal London newspaper The Westminster Gazette. Jean Hérold-Paquis, a broadcaster on the German-controlled Radio Paris in occupied France between 1940 and 1944 had "England, like Carthage, shall be destroyed!" as his catchphrase.

The phrase was used as the title for Alan Wilkins' 2007 play on the Third Punic War, and for a 2010 book about Carthaginian history by Richard Miles.

In a modern meaning, the syntagma "ceterum censeo" used by itself refers to an oft reiterated statement, usually a core belief of the one issuing it.

Janusz Korwin-Mikke, a Polish eurosceptic member of the eighth European Parliament (2014–2018), often paraphrased Cato the elder. At the end of his speeches, Mikke would often conclude with the words: "And besides, I believe that the European Union should be destroyed." (A poza tym sądzę, że Unia Europejska powinna zostać zniszczona")

Former Dutch politician Marianne Thieme, once lead candidate for the Party for the Animals, always concluded her speeches in Parliament with the phrase: "Furthermore we are of the opinion that factory farming has to be ended" ("Voorts zijn wij van mening dat er een einde moet komen aan de bio-industrie"), referring to Carthago delenda est.

During the Russian invasion of Ukraine (2022-present), Latvian president, Edgars Rinkēvičs, tweeted twice "Ruzzia delenda est" ("Russia delenda est") in 2023 and 2024.

Grammatical analysis

The phrase employs delenda, the feminine singular gerundive form of the verb dēlēre ("to destroy"). The gerundive (or future passive participle) delenda is a verbal adjective that may be translated as "to be destroyed". When combined with a form of the verb esse ("to be"), it adds an element of compulsion or necessity, yielding "is to be destroyed", or, as it is more commonly rendered, "must be destroyed". The gerundive delenda functions as a predicative adjective in this construction, which is known as the passive periphrastic.

The short form of the phrase, Carthago delenda est, is an independent clause. Consequently, the feminine singular subject noun Carthago appears in the nominative case. The verb est functions as a copula—linking the subject noun Carthago to the predicative verbal adjective delenda—and further imparts a deontic modality to the clause as a whole. Because delenda is a predicative adjective in relation to the subject noun Carthago, it takes the same number (singular), gender (feminine) and case (nominative) as Carthago.

The fuller forms Ceterum censeo delendam esse Carthaginem and Ceterum autem censeo delendam esse Carthaginem use the so-called accusative and infinitive construction for the indirect statement. In each of these forms, the verb censeo ("I opine") sets up the indirect statement delendam esse Carthaginem ("[that] Carthage is to be destroyed"). Carthaginem, the subject of the indirect statement, is in the accusative case; while the verb esse is in its present infinitive form. Delendam is a predicate adjective in relation to the subject noun Carthaginem and thus takes the same number (singular); gender (feminine); and case (accusative) as Carthaginem.

See also

• Ad nauseam
• Carthaginian peace
• Death to America
• Debellatio
• Genocide
• Proof by assertion
• List of Latin phrases

Bibliography

Ancient sources

• Florus, Epitome.
• Gaius Plinius Secundus (Pliny the Elder), Naturalis historia ("Natural History").
• Plutarch, Parallel Lives
• Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica ("Historical Library").
• Aurelius Victor, De viris illustribus Romae.

Modern sources

• F. E. Adcock, "'Delenda est Carthago'", in The Cambridge Historical Journal, Vol. 8, No. 3 (1946), pp. 117–128.
• Alan E. Astin, Cato the Censor, Oxford University Press, 1978.
• John F. Miller & A. F. Woodman (editors), Latin Historiography and Poetry in the Early Empire, Leiden/Boston, Brill, 2010.
• Ellen O'Gorman, "Cato the elder and the destruction of Carthage Archived 28 April 2019 at the Wayback Machine", in Helios 31 (2004), pp. 96–123.
• Little, Charles E. “The Authenticity and Form of Cato’s Saying ‘Carthago Delenda Est.’” The Classical Journal, vol. 29, no. 6 (1934), pp. 429–35.
• Purcell, Nicholas (1995). "On the Sacking of Carthage and Corinth". In Innes, Doreen; Hine, Harry; Pelling, Christopher (eds.). Ethics and Rhetoric: Classical Essays for Donald Russell on his Seventy Fifth Birthday. Oxford: Clarendon. pp. 133–148. ISBN 978-0-19-814962-0.
• Ridley, Ronald (1986). "To Be Taken with a Pinch of Salt: The Destruction of Carthage". Classical Philology. 81 (2): 140–146. doi:10.1086/366973. JSTOR 269786. S2CID 161696751.
• Ripley, George; Dana, Charles A. (1858–1863). "Carthage". The New American Cyclopædia: a Popular Dictionary of General Knowledge. Vol. 4. New York: D. Appleton. p. 497. OCLC 1173144180. Retrieved 29 July 2020.
• Silvia Clavadetscher-Thürlemann, "Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam", Gymnasium 81 (1974), pp. 465–476.
• Ursula Vogel-Weidemann, "Carthago delenda est: Aita and Prophasis", in Acta Classica XXXII (1989), pp. 79–95.
• Gordon, Gregory S. (2017). Atrocity Speech Law: Foundation, Fragmentation, Fruition. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-061270-2.