Wikipedia tidbits.

[wombat1138]

From their entry for Dido (a.k.a. Elissa), Queen of Carthage.

"In Italy, during the Fascist Regime, her figure was demonized, perhaps not only as an anti-Roman figure but because she represented together at least three other unpleasant qualities: feminine virtue, Semitic ethnic origin, and African civilization. Her name and her memory were very feared. [....] After her death, she was deified by her people with the name of Tanit and assimilated to the Great Goddess Astarte. [...] The cult of Tanit survived Carthage's destruction by the Romans; it was introduced to Rome itself by Emperor Septimius Severus, himself born in North Africa. It was extinguished completely with the Theodosian decrees of the late 4th century."

(The middle sentence is from a recent historiographically-disputed account. The more succinct phrase "revisionist history" seems to've been pretty darn tainted by the image of Nazi apologist scum at this point. Pity; it's a useful shorthand for rethinking the old traditional biases of dead white males, which is probably why it was rendered useless by people who remain in that camp.)

Rambling quasi-thinkitude-- Tanit was the consort of Ba'al (= "Lord") Hammon, who was apparently not the same as Ba'al Melqart of Tyre after all despite the (evidently outdated) material I remember from my mythovorous stage of childhood. (I suppose there could also be some stuff about Ba'al(s) in Graves. If so, he probably got it wrong out of sheer Gravesian Gravesiness.) I'm not actually sure whether Melqart had a consort, but I'm suddenly reminded of the strong not-quite-consorty parallel bonds between Melkor and Ungoliant and Sauron and Shelob. (And Ted and Alice, of course. "If you can't say anything nice, sit down next to me?")

Tolkien's most significant female antagonists are monstrous devouring beasts, treacherous and inhuman with no pretense at anything except appetite. (Queen Miriel of Numenor might've developed a great deal of ambiguous complexity, if those drafts had been followed up in which she willingly accepted her cousin's courtship. I can't remember enough about Erendis and Ancalime at the moment to say much about them) Compare to Jadis and the Lady of the Green Kirtle in Narnia, whose seductive subterfuge is a key part of their evil. Cite key examples to support your argument, and use clear, bold handwriting in sea-blue or slate-grey ink. All serifs should be clearly marked with flowing elegance. Start now.

Comments

[qadgop.livejournal.com]

Maybe it's just that it's been too many years since I read the Aeneid, but how is Dido anti-Roman? Rome isn't founded until after Aeneas loves & leaves her, yes? Is it that he tarried too long and thus put off the start of Rome's glory for a few months, and it's all her fault?

[wombat1138.livejournal.com]

It's been a while since my last reading too, but iirc the legacy of Dido's suicide is the eternal hatred of Carthage against Rome, at least once Rome is founded several generations after Aeneas and his shipmates readjust their gender ratio with the help of some friendly locals (otherwise known as "The Rape of the Sabine Women"; hey, it's not like the Sabine men were putting them to use efficiently).

The actual causes of all three Punic Wars are probably a bit less romantic. So to speak. Not that I remember much of those either, other than childhood reading about Marius and the Gracchi Brothers and Cornelia which is mostly all a blur by now, but presumably Sardinia, Sicily, and Southern Italy in general had a fair amount to do with it. IIRC from rather distant hearsay (I think I read it on the net somewhere), one of the common regional-superiority statements of Northern Italians is that everyone south of [some geographical boundary] is more African than European in terms of cuisine, appearance, and other such ethnological markers.

But if anyone's up for beseiging Rome again, I'd like a(nother) mumak, please. Mumak rides for everyone! Sparkly pink My Pretty Mumakil!!!

...okay, no more sugar for me today.....

[qadgop.livejournal.com]

Thought the Punic Wars were basically about economics? (Aren't they all?)

I have heard the theory, presented as historic fact, that the Sicilians are heavily African-descended. However, I heard this, in (post-BA) college, from an African-everything-worshipping Italian American guy who hated Italians, and who'd learned this in his 1991-or-so African American Studies class from his accredited Professor of African American Studies who apparently went into a lot of the traditional all-the-great-ancient-civilizations-were-really stuff, so I do not vouch for it. OTOH, given the geographic placement, it would make sense if there were a fair bit of Arabic/Moorish ancestry there.

[wombat1138.livejournal.com]

I still haven't remembered to hunt down any of Cavalli-Sforza's surveys of archaeogenealogy (or whatever the right term is-- human population cladistics?), but surely the trans-Mediterranean interchange before the Punic Wars (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Africa_during_the_Classical_Period) would've predated the major period of Arabic/Moorish influence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maghreb)? Mind you, geography all gloops into one big blur for me, so mumbly handwaving.