Project Overview

The purpose of the present study is to examine how and why the image of Carthage was used in political discourse during the French Revolution. While many historians have noted that the French made frequent rhetorical use of the symbol of Carthage during the Seven Years War and the French Revolution, they have generally shown little interest in treating it as more than a mere historical footnote within their broader lines of argument.[1] The few who have given greater weight to the subject have either tended to neglect how the symbol evolved over time or have made no use of qualitative or quantitative analysis.[2]

By contrast, this study is devoted entirely and exclusively to the symbol of Carthage and to a comprehensive analysis of usage patterns using the latest digital methods. It takes two interrelated corpuses, the Moniteur universel and the Archives parlementaires, and searches them for references to Carthage. These allusions are then analyzed, considering not only their frequency but also their valence and their rhetorical purpose.

This examination thus seeks to understand the overall place that the idea of Carthage held in the political discourse of the French Revolution. It demonstrates how evolving political circumstances were reflected in changes in how Carthage was alluded to and thereby suggests that the image of Carthage can be used as an indicator of the evolving mentalities of the revolutionaries. Just as the Revolution imbued profound political significance to such words as liberty, equality, or fraternity,

so too was Carthage a key symbol in contermporary political debates.

1 For instance, Jacques Bouineau's comprehensive study of the symbolism of Antiquity during the French Revolution devoted little more than a page to image of Carthage (Jacques Bouineau, Les toges du pouvoir [1789-1799], ou la Révolution de droit antique [Toulouse: Editions Eché, 1986), 489, 497]). Other works that have briefly discussed the image of Carthage include: Edward G. Andrew, Imperial Republics: Revolution, War, and Territorial Expansion from the English Civil War to the French Revolution (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011), 12–13, 49–50; David A. Bell, The Cult of the Nation in France: Inventing Nationalism, 1680-1800 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), 84–85, 100–101, 103; Edmond Dziembowski, Un nouveau patriotisme français, 1750-1770 : la France face à la puissance anglaise à l’époque de la guerre de Sept Ans (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1998), 83–84; Norman Hampson, The Perfidy of Albion: French Perceptions of England during the French Revolution (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998), 120–144; Michael L. Kennedy, The Jacobin Clubs in the French Revolution: 1793-1795 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 232–233; Miles, Carthage Must Be Destroyed, 9–10; H. D. Schmidt, “The Idea and Slogan of ‘Perfidious Albion,’” Journal of the History of Ideas 14, no. 4 (October 1, 1953): 610–613; Sophie Wahnich, L’impossible citoyen : L’étranger dans le discours de la Révolution française (Paris: A. Michel, 1997), 264, 277, 305, 317.

2 Such works that have treated the image of Carthage in a more substantial way include Bonnet, “Carthage”; Jean-François Dunyach, “Carthage entre Seine et Tamise, petite histoire d’un modèle explicatif de la rivalité franco-anglaise au XVIIIe siècle,” in Les idées passent-elles la Manche ?: savoirs, représentations, pratiques (France-Angleterre, Xe-XXe siècles), ed. Jean-Philippe Genet and François-Joseph Ruggiu (Paris: PUPS, 2007); Nicholas Rowe, “Romans and Carthaginians in the Eighteenth Century: Imperial Ideology and National Identity in Britain and France during the Seven Years’ War” (Ph.D., Boston College, 1997), 64–97; Charles G. Salas, “Punic Wars in France and Britain” (Ph.D., Claremont Graduate School, 1996).