Delenda est Carthago
by Ron Pretty
I too come from Carthage. I was there
as the city burned, as Scipio Africanus
came in from the sea—a bloody sunset,
a fiery night, six hundred years of city
sundered blood and rubble. Scipio
Africanus came in from the sea,
implacable with his legions, came in
from the sea implacable with his mission:
Carthage must be destroyed, must be
rendered void. Rome will have no rivals.
The ancient people, heirs of Tyre
and of Phoenicia, sold into slavery, those
that lived, or buried beneath the rubble.
A victory bloody and complete. I was there.
A victory bloody and complete. Carthage
must be destroyed. Citizens of Rome turned out
in force to cheer the murderous legions home.
A three day triumph through the city and Cato
vindicated. Carthage is no more. But Rome,
what of her, now master of the world?
The Senate in its celebration saw a future rich
with loot, its last rival gone. Instead it got
a hundred years of civil strife, of factions
fighting over African entrails. Assassinations,
riots and the death of the Republic.
I too come from Rome, I was there
in its martial glory and its slow civic
attrition born of triumph. I was there.
Ron Pretty’s seventh book of poetry, Postcards From the Centre, was published in 2010. Until he retired in 2007 he ran the Poetry Australia Foundation and was Director of Five Islands Press. He taught creative writing at the Universities of Wollongong and Melbourne. He has edited the literary journals SCARP and Blue Dog: Australian Poetry.