Carthage and the French Revolution

Though it lacks any great rhetorical immediacy today and indeed has largely been forgotten, Carthage was a recurrent and powerful symbol in eighteenth-century French political discourse, particularly during the French Revolution. Long after its physical eradication, the Punic city lived on as an idea, a vessel into which scholars, statesmen, and ordinary citizens could pour contemporary concerns and anxieties. The afterlife of ancient Carthage in Reviolutionary political discourse provides a window onto the ideological mentalities of the era.