To the editor:

Delenda est Carthago! Carthage must be destroyed. Marcus Porcius Cato (the Elder) repeated this at every opportunity. It is a second century B.C. equivalent of the call to destroy the “terror network” and the “evil axis.”

Carthage had been a major trading center of the Phoenicians. By the time of the third Punic War, Rome had already reduced the naval influence and military capacity of Carthage to the point where it presented no threat to Rome.

But the elite of Rome, Cato in particular, feared that someday Carthage would rise again. So all traces of Carthage were wiped out and Roman hegemony over the Mediterranean was assured.

The problem is that the Roman Republic was weakened in the process and the crossing of the Rubicon by Caesar some 90 years later was merely the acknowledgement of the end of the Republic.

It’s a story we read in second- or third-year Latin 40 years ago. It is only a story about events of a long dead country. It could never happen in our well-crafted republic because we are different.

Earl L Haehl,

Lawrence