Carthage Must Be Destroyed: The Rise and Fall of an Ancient Civilization (Allen Lane History) [Hardcover]

Mr. Miles has skilfully fused the works of ancient historians such as Polybius and Livy, a wide range of modern studies and recent archaeological research to create a convincing and enthralling narrative (The Economist )

Richard Miles's Carthage Must be Destroyed is a refreshing addition to the debate (Philip Parker Financial Times )

This is a lively and compelling, chronological account of Carthage from its Phoenician foundation to its reception in Emperor Augustus's Rome (Literary Review Paul Cartledge )

Richard Miles tells this story with tremendous élan, combining the best of modern scholarship with narrative pace and energy. It is a superb achievement, a model for all such endeavours. He is even better on the little-known background to this tale (Peter Jones Telegraph )

The dramatic story of these events is set out in gripping detail (The Scotsman )

Miles ... has written an epic and fascinating new history of the city ... [and] performed a splendid feat of resurrectionism (Tom Holland The Spectator )

Miles helps to fill in the blanks with this thoughtful and meticulous book (Daniel Metcalfe Guardian )

Carthage's fate was sad indeed, but Miles here has done much to bring it to dramatic life (John Dillon Irish Times )

A fine, sweeping survey of the rise and fall of an empire and a glimpse into the diversity of the ancient world ... Richard Miles is ... concerned with the wider context ... and his book is all the more valuable for that (Wall Street Journal )

The devastating struggle to the death between the Carthaginians and the Romans was one of the defining dramas of the Ancient World. In an epic series of land and sea battles both sides came close to victory before the Carthaginians finally buckled and their capital city, history and culture were almost utterly erased. The last great threat to Roman supremacy across the entire Mediterranean had gone, fulfilling Cato the Elder's insistent demand that 'Carthage must be destroyed'.

Carthage Must Be Destroyed brilliantly brings to life this lost empire - from its origins among the Phoenician settlements of Lebanon to its apotheosis as the greatest sea-power in the Mediterranean, with interests stretching from the Middle East to southern Spain. Roman ferocity tried to remove Carthage from history, but it is possible nonetheless to create an extraordinary narrative of a civilization which left an indelible, if often hidden legacy for those that followed. At the heart of all attempts to understand Carthage must lie the extraordinary figure of Hannibal - the scourge of Rome and one of the greatest, most charismatic and innovative of all military leaders, but a man also who ultimately led his people to catastrophe.

Drawing on a wealth of new archaeological research, Richard Miles makes Carthage vivid as it has never been before.

Richard Miles is a Newton Trust lecturer in the Faculty of Classics and Fellow and Director of Studies in Classics at Trinity Hall, Cambridge University. He has written widely on Punic, Roman and Vandal North Africa and has directed archaeological excavations in Carthage and Rome.