The Chronos Cataloga register of films on the ancient Mediterranean

The third night in story order

Rome and Carthage between the wars, narrated for sleep

The quiet between the two wars. In 241 BC the long war ended with a document rather than a marchn.1n.2. n.1 The night begins from the treaty of 241 BC: “There shall be friendship between the Carthaginians and Romans on the following terms if approved by the Roman people” (1.62.8). n.2 The Roman people did not accept those terms. Ten commissioners halved the time to pay, added a thousand talents, and required Carthage to leave the islands between Sicily and Italy (1.63.1 to 1.63.3). An unpaid army walked inland to Sicca, and the account was settled in what Polybius named the truceless war. In 237 BC Hamilcar Barca crossed to Iberia with his son Hannibal, then nine. Hasdrubal raised a new city on a southern bay. The river Iber was agreed on as a line.

Plate V.The river mouth before dawn, generated for the piece: Hamilcar’s column crossing where the sand had built up.

The night, chapter by chapter

  1. 0:06Chapter 1
  2. 6:30Chapter 2
  3. 15:25Chapter 3
  4. 23:14Chapter 4
  5. 31:37Chapter 5
  6. 39:24Chapter 6
  7. 47:54Chapter 7
  8. 57:06Chapter 8
  9. 1:04:13Chapter 9
  10. 1:11:31Chapter 10
  11. 1:18:01Chapter 11
  12. 1:24:50Chapter 12
  13. 1:31:36Epilogue
  14. 1:34:07The end of the night

Titles and times as published with the video; each opens it on YouTube at that point.

What is contested

  • The name Barca meaning lightning is a tradition. So are Archimedes at the slipway, the great ship sent to Egypt as a gift, and Hasdrubal’s Iberian marriage, and the narration tells each of them as tradition.
  • Harbour logs kept in two languages are plausible, not documented.
  • Thirteen passages describe how work was done in the period, not a named occasion; they are reconstructed practice, presented as description.

See also

The First Punic War, narrated for sleep

It ends with the treaty this night opens on.

The night before

1:07:54

How the First Punic War began, 264 to 262 BC

How it began, awake: the vote that sent a Roman army across the sea.

Awake

23:37

Sources

  1. Polybius, Histories, Books 1 to 3 (1.62 to 1.88, 2.1, 2.13, 2.36, 3.10 to 3.11), in the Evelyn S. Shuckburgh translation (1889), checked against Paton’s Loeb text
  2. Cicero, Verrines: Hiero’s grain tithe

Every text these films use, with its translation.