("Furthermore, I think that

Carthage Carthage was an ancient city in Northern Africa, on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis in what is now Tunisia. Carthage was one of the most important trading hubs of the Ancient Mediterranean and one of the most affluent cities of the classic ...

must be destroyed"), often abbreviated to or ("Carthage must be destroyed"), is a Latin oratorical phrase attributed to

Cato the Elder Marcus Porcius Cato (, ; 234–149 BC), also known as Cato the Censor (), the Elder and the Wise, was a Roman soldier, Roman Senate, senator, and Roman historiography, historian known for his conservatism and opposition to Hellenization. He wa ...

, a politician of the

Roman Republic The Roman Republic ( ) was the era of Ancient Rome, classical Roman civilisation beginning with Overthrow of the Roman monarchy, the overthrow of the Roman Kingdom (traditionally dated to 509 BC) and ending in 27 BC with the establis ...

. The phrase originates from debates held in the

Roman Senate The Roman Senate () was the highest and constituting assembly of ancient Rome and its aristocracy. With different powers throughout its existence it lasted from the first days of the city of Rome (traditionally founded in 753 BC) as the Sena ...

prior to the

Third Punic War The Third Punic War (149–146 BC) was the third and last of the Punic Wars fought between Carthage and Rome. The war was fought entirely within Carthaginian territory, in what is now northern Tunisia. When the Second Punic War ended in 20 ...

(149–146 BC) between Rome and Carthage. Cato is said to have used the phrase as the conclusion to all of his speeches to push for the war, even when the speech was otherwise unrelated to Carthage or foreign affairs.

Historical background

Although Rome was successful in the first two

Punic Wars The Punic Wars were a series of wars fought between the Roman Republic and the Ancient Carthage, Carthaginian Empire during the period 264 to 146BC. Three such wars took place, involving a total of forty-three years of warfare on both land and ...

, as it vied for dominance with the seafaring

Punic The Punic people, usually known as the Carthaginians (and sometimes as Western Phoenicians), were a Semitic people who migrated from Phoenicia to the Western Mediterranean during the Early Iron Age. In modern scholarship, the term ''Punic'' ...

city-state of Carthage in

North Africa North Africa (sometimes Northern Africa) is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region. However, it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of t ...

(now

Tunisia Tunisia, officially the Republic of Tunisia, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and southwest, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Tunisia also shares m ...

), it suffered several humiliations and damaging reverses in the course of these engagements, especially at the

Battle of Cannae The Battle of Cannae (; ) was a key engagement of the Second Punic War between the Roman Republic and Ancient Carthage, Carthage, fought on 2 August 216 BC near the ancient village of Cannae in Apulia, southeast Italy. The Carthaginians and ...

in 216 BC. Rome nonetheless managed to win the

Second Punic War The Second Punic War (218 to 201 BC) was the second of Punic Wars, three wars fought between Ancient Carthage, Carthage and Roman Republic, Rome, the two main powers of the western Mediterranean Basin, Mediterranean in the 3rd century BC. For ...

thanks to

Scipio Africanus Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus (, , ; 236/235–) was a Roman general and statesman who was one of the main architects of Rome's victory against Ancient Carthage, Carthage in the Second Punic War. Often regarded as one of the greatest milit ...

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 Masinissa (''c.'' 238 BC – 148 BC), also spelled Massinissa, Massena and Massan, was an ancient Numidian king best known for leading a federation of Massylii Berber tribes during the Second Punic War (218–201 BC), ultimately uniting th ...

, the king of

Numidia Numidia was the ancient kingdom of the Numidians in northwest Africa, initially comprising the territory that now makes up Algeria, but later expanding across what is today known as Tunisia and Libya. The polity was originally divided between ...

. 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, saying "Carthage must be saved" (''Carthago servanda est'').Plutarch, ''Cato the Elder'', 27. Cato finally won the debate after Carthage had attacked

, which gave a

casus belli A (; ) is an act or an event that either provokes or is used to justify a war. A ''casus belli'' involves direct offenses or threats against the nation declaring the war, whereas a ' involves offenses or threats against its ally—usually one bou ...

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 Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus Aemilianus (185 BC – 129 BC), known as Scipio Aemilianus or Scipio Africanus the Younger, was a Roman general and statesman noted for his military exploits in the Third Punic War against Carthage and durin ...

—Africanus's grandson—and its entire remaining population was sold into

slavery Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labour. Slavery typically involves compulsory work, with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavemen ...

, and

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

then became a

Roman province The Roman provinces (, pl. ) were the administrative regions of Ancient Rome outside Roman Italy that were controlled by the Romans under the Roman Republic and later the Roman Empire. Each province was ruled by a Roman appointed as Roman g ...

. 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 "". Ancient authors quote the phrase as follow: *

Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/24 79), known in English as Pliny the Elder ( ), was a Roman Empire, Roman author, Natural history, naturalist, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the Roman emperor, emperor Vesp ...

, in his ''Natural History'': "" * Aurelius Victor in his ''De viris illustribus'': "" *

Florus Three main sets of works are attributed to Florus (a Roman cognomen): ''Virgilius orator an poeta'', the ''Epitome of Roman History'' and a collection of 14 short poems (66 lines in all). As to whether these were composed by the same person, or ...

, in his ''Epitome'' of

Livy Titus Livius (; 59 BC – AD 17), known in English as Livy ( ), was a Roman historian. He wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people, titled , covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome before the traditional founding i ...

: ""Florus, ''Epitome''
i. 31
Therefore, Pliny the Elder, Florus and the Pseudo Aurelius Victor quote the phrase in

indirect speech In linguistics, speech or indirect discourse is a grammatical mechanism for reporting the content of another utterance without directly quoting it. For example, the English sentence ''Jill said she was coming'' is indirect discourse while ''Ji ...

. Instead, only a paraphrastic translation is the

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

rendering of the Catonian phrase by

Plutarch Plutarch (; , ''Ploútarchos'', ; – 120s) was a Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, historian, biographer, essayist, and priest at the Temple of Apollo (Delphi), Temple of Apollo in Delphi. He is known primarily for his ''Parallel Lives'', ...

in his '' Life of Cato the Elder'', 27: "" ("''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 Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury PC, FRS (22 July 1621 – 21 January 1683), was an English statesman and peer. He held senior political office under both the Commonwealth of England and Charles II, serving as Chancellor of the ...

revived the phrase in the form "" in a speech before Parliament during the

Third Anglo-Dutch War The Third Anglo-Dutch War, began on 27 March 1672, and concluded on 19 February 1674. A naval conflict between the Dutch Republic and England, in alliance with France, it is considered a related conflict of the wider 1672 to 1678 Franco-Dutch W ...

, 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 ("Germany must be destroyed"). In 1899, the Russian writer

Leo Tolstoy Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy Tolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; ,Throughout Tolstoy's whole life, his name was written as using Reforms of Russian orthography#The post-revolution re ...

retained the phrase's form "" for the title of a

pacifist Pacifism is the opposition to war or violence. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace campaigner Émile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress in Glasgow in 1901. A related term is ''a ...

essay condemning war and

militarism Militarism is the belief or the desire of a government or a people that a state should maintain a strong military capability and to use it aggressively to expand national interests and/or values. It may also imply the glorification of the mili ...

published in the liberal London newspaper '' The Westminster Gazette''. Jean Hérold-Paquis, a broadcaster on the German-controlled

Radio Paris Radio Paris was a French radio broadcasting company best known for its Axis propaganda broadcasts in Vichy France during World War II. Radio Paris evolved from the first private radio station in France, called Radiola, founded by pioneering Fren ...

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 "" used by itself refers to an oft reiterated statement, usually a core belief of the one issuing it.

Steve Bannon Stephen Kevin Bannon (born November 27, 1953) is an American media executive, political strategist, and former investment banker. He served as the White House's chief strategist for the first seven months of president Donald Trump's first ...

often paraphrased Cato the elder by saying "CCP delende est", referring to the

Chinese Communist Party The Communist Party of China (CPC), also translated into English as Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is the founding and One-party state, sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Founded in 1921, the CCP emerged victorious in the ...

Janusz Korwin-Mikke Janusz Ryszard Korwin-Mikke (; born 27 October 1942), also known by his initials JKM or simply as Korwin, is a Polish far-right politician, paleolibertarian and author. He was a member of the European Parliament from 2014 until 2018. He was the ...

, a Polish

eurosceptic Euroscepticism, also spelled as Euroskepticism or EU-scepticism, is a political position involving criticism of the European Union (EU) and European integration. It ranges from those who oppose some EU institutions and policies and seek refor ...

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 Marianne Louise Thieme (; born 6 March 1972) is a Dutch politician, author and animal rights activist. A jurist and theologian by education, she served as the Party for the Animals' political leader from 2002 to 2019 and a member of the House of R ...

, once lead candidate for the

Party for the Animals The Party for the Animals ( , PvdD) is a List of political parties in the Netherlands, political party in the Netherlands. Among its main goals are animal rights and animal welfare. The PvdD was founded in 2002 as a single-issue party for animal ...

, always concluded her speeches in Parliament with the phrase: "Furthermore we are of the opinion that factory farming has to be ended." ("") During the

Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...

(2022-present),

Latvia Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to t ...

n president,

Edgars Rinkēvičs Edgars Rinkēvičs (born 21 September 1973) is a Latvian public official and politician serving as the 11th and current president of Latvia since July 2023. He previously served as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Latvia), minister of foreign af ...

, tweeted twice " Ruzzia delenda est" ("Russia delenda est") in 2023 and 2024.

Mark Zuckerberg Mark Elliot Zuckerberg (; born May 14, 1984) is an American businessman who co-founded the social media service Facebook and its parent company Meta Platforms, of which he is the chairman, chief executive officer, and controlling sharehold ...

, co-founder and CEO of Meta, wore a t-shirt with the phrase for his 40th birthday party in 2024.

Grammatical analysis

The phrase employs , the feminine singular

gerundive In Latin grammar, a gerundive () is a verb form that functions as a verbal adjective. In Classical Latin, the gerundive has the same form as the gerund, but is distinct from the present active participle. In Late Latin, the differences were lar ...

form of the verb ("to destroy"). The gerundive (or future passive participle) is a verbal adjective that may be translated as "to be destroyed". When combined with a form of the verb ("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 functions as a

predicative adjective A predicative expression (or just predicative) is part of a clause predicate, and is an expression that typically follows a copula or linking verb, e.g. ''be'', ''seem'', ''appear'', or that appears as a second complement (object complement) of ...

in this construction, which is known as the passive periphrastic. The short form of the phrase, , is an

independent clause In traditional grammar, an independent clause (or main clause) is a clause that can stand by itself as a ''simple sentence''. An independent clause contains a subject and a predicate and makes sense by itself. Independent clauses can be joined ...

. Consequently, the feminine singular subject noun appears in the nominative case. The verb functions as a copula—linking the subject noun to the predicative verbal adjective —and further imparts a

deontic modality Deontic modality (abbreviated ) is a linguistic modality that indicates how the world ought to be according to certain norms, expectations, speaker desires, etc. In other words, a deontic expression indicates that the state of the world (where 'worl ...

to the clause as a whole. Because is a predicative adjective in relation to the subject noun , it takes the same

number A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The most basic examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers can ...

(singular),

gender Gender is the range of social, psychological, cultural, and behavioral aspects of being a man (or boy), woman (or girl), or third gender. Although gender often corresponds to sex, a transgender person may identify with a gender other tha ...

(feminine) and

case Case or CASE may refer to: Instances * Instantiation (disambiguation), a realization of a concept, theme, or design * Special case, an instance that differs in a certain way from others of the type Containers * Case (goods), a package of relate ...

(nominative) as . The fuller forms and use the so-called

accusative and infinitive In grammar, accusative and infinitive (also ''Accusativus cum infinitivo'' or accusative plus infinitive, frequently abbreviated ACI or A+I) is the name for a syntactic construction first described in Latin and Greek, also found in various forms ...

construction for the indirect statement. In each of these forms, the verb ("I opine") sets up the indirect statement ("

hat A hat is a Headgear, head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorpor ...

Carthage is to be destroyed"). , the subject of the indirect statement, is in the

accusative case In grammar, the accusative case ( abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to receive the direct object of a transitive verb. In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: "me", "him", "he ...

; while the verb '' esse'' is in its

present The present is the period of time that is occurring now. The present is contrasted with the past, the period of time that has already occurred; and the future, the period of time that has yet to occur. It is sometimes represented as a hyperplan ...

infinitive Infinitive ( abbreviated ) is a linguistics term for certain verb forms existing in many languages, most often used as non-finite verbs that do not show a tense. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a single definition applicable to all ...

form. is a predicate adjective in relation to the subject noun and thus takes the same number (singular); gender (feminine); and case (accusative) as .''Allen and Greenough's New Latin Grammar for Schools and Colleges, Part First — Words and Forms, Adjectives.''
''Perseus Digital Library'', accessed 13 Feb. 2016.

Notes

References

Bibliography

Ancient sources

, ''Epitome.'' * Gaius Plinius Secundus (

), ("Natural History"). *

, ''

Parallel Lives * Culture of ancient Greece Culture of ancient Rome Ancient Greek biographical works Ethics literature History books about ancient Rome Cultural depictions of Gaius Marius Cultural depictions of Mark Antony Cultural depictions of Cicero ...

'' *

Diodorus Siculus Diodorus Siculus or Diodorus of Sicily (; 1st century BC) was an ancient Greece, ancient Greek historian from Sicily. He is known for writing the monumental Universal history (genre), universal history ''Bibliotheca historica'', in forty ...

, ("Historical Library"). * Aurelius Victor, .

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
", 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. * * * * , "Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam", Gymnasium 81 (1974), pp. 465–476. * , "Carthago delenda est: Aita and Prophasis", in '' Acta Classica'' XXXII (1989), pp. 79–95. * {{cite book , last1=Gordon , first1=Gregory S., author-link=Gregory Gordon (lawyer) , title=Atrocity Speech Law: Foundation, Fragmentation, Fruition , date=2017 , publisher=

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

, isbn=978-0-19-061270-2 , language=en Carthage Latin political words and phrases Latin quotations Third Punic War Incitement to genocide Hate speech Cato the Elder