The word itself was originally coined by the CEO in 1944 by the Polish writer Raphael Lemkin (1900-1959), who combined the word "geno-" in Greek race or tribe with the word "-cide" in Latin for killing. The modern concept of genocide is largely attributed to the work of Lemkin, who developed his own ideas in Eastern Europe when he was young and served as a fighter against the German army during World War II (Elder 2005；; MacDonald and Moses in 2005). Lemkin described genocide as "a coordinated plan of different actions aimed at destroying the basic foundation of ethnic life, with the aim of destroying the ethnic group itself" (Jones 2006:10-1/kloc). The second most influential document to explain the modern legal concept of genocide is the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide adopted by the United Nations in 1948. Article 2 of the Convention defines genocide as "the intention to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group in whole or in part".
Since then, the academic circles have launched a wide-ranging debate on the exact explanation of genocide caused by these two landmark works. However, it can be seen that in order to regard an incident as genocide, two main factors are needed, namely, the clear intention to take action on behalf of the perpetrator and the specific political, social or cultural groups arising from it. With this in mind, it is possible to identify two possible cases of genocide in the ancient world: the destruction of Carthage by Rome in BC 146 and the Athens Massacre in Melos in BC16.
The Roman massacre in Carthage
Carthage is located in the Mediterranean Sea of Africa, roughly equivalent to Tunis today, 400 miles from Rome. The main sources of the destruction of Carthage are the historians Apian and Polybius. Carthage was founded as a Phoenician colony. Unlike the Roman Empire's expansion by conquering neighboring countries, Carthage developed and expanded northward through trade links with places as far away as Britain, and Gabon (Braudel 200 1: 2 18) in modern Africa was in the south. The Phoenician origin of Carthage means that the city is in sharp contrast with Rome in some aspects. For example, its * * * is more aristocratic than the so-called democratic Rome, its religion is a strange mystery to the Romans, and its overall outlook on life has been influenced by eastern Greece and Africa (Braudel 200 1).
Rome and Carthage have gradually become real superpowers on both sides of the Mediterranean, so fighting between them may be inevitable. This happened during the three Punic wars, so it was called Punic because the Romans used Latin Punicus to refer to the Phoenician descent of Carthage, which began in 264 BC and ended in the destruction of Carthage in 146 BC. The first and second Punic wars made Rome control Sicily, Spain and most of the western Mediterranean. In the third Punic War which broke out in BC 149, the kingdom of Carthage invaded modern Algeria catastrophically. In BC 149, in order to cope with this war, a huge Roman army, under the command of Yunus of Scipio, landed in Africa and began to besiege the city. At first, the Carthaginians tried to live in peace with the Romans, who announced a series of difficult conditions that they were required to meet. Rome initially demanded taking hostages and handing over all weapons in the city. When all these requirements were met, Rome ordered the city to be demolished and built further inland. At this stage, the Carthaginians in last stand had no choice but to fight.
Despite the great strength of the Roman army, the city persisted for another three years, until finally, in BC 146, the defense failed and the Romans flocked to it. The residents of this city were massacred by disciplined legions, who systematically moved from house to house. Lloyd (1977: 178) thinks that the city may have as many as 200,000 residents, while Braudel (200 1: 225) reduces the population size to about100000 people. However, even at this low end, the massacre in this city is huge, which may be unprecedented in the European world at that time. Survivors may range from 30,000 to 50,000 and be sold into slavery. Under the direct order of Rome, the city was subsequently set on fire. After ten days of burning, the stones were demolished one by one. Polybius pointed out in chapter 3 of volume 38 of his History-1 1 that "the destruction of the Carthaginians was direct and thorough", so it was a pity that no Carthaginians stayed.
In the ancient world, it was common to kill all the residents of a city-state whose residents refused to surrender, so it was necessary to carefully check whether this particular incident was genocide. In this case, a key factor, which is consistent with Lemkin's concept of genocide, is that Rome obviously intends to destroy Carthage and its people and culture, in any case. This potential goal can be seen from Rome's increasingly insatiable demands on Carthage before the war broke out. When Carthage could not meet the requirements on the spot, it provided a reasonable excuse for the behavior of the Romans. In addition, among the ruling elites and people of Rome, there is a feeling that Carthage must be destroyed to ensure the political and cultural dominance of Rome. The personal motto of the Roman politician old Cato is the best summary, which means "Carthage must be destroyed". He used it to end all public speeches (Radice 1973: 85).
The Athens Massacre in Melos
Another kind of state-sponsored genocide may be the destruction of Greek island city-states and Melos culture by the Athenian Empire during the Peloponnesian War in 4 16 BC, which lasted from 43 1 year BC to 404 BC when the Athenians finally failed. This battle took place in the whole Greek world and was regarded as an important world war by Thucydides, a contemporary historian. In the summer of 4 16 BC, during the intermission of fighting in Athens, she turned her attention to the nearby island of Melos, where people claimed to be descendants of the Spartan colony, but so far they remained neutral in the war. But the Athenians felt that they could no longer tolerate the existence of a just country in the Aegean Sea, so they sent representatives to the island to ask them to surrender.
In Thucydides' description of the war, a famous debate called "Beautiful Dialogue" took place between the two sides (Warner 1985). In this debate, the Athenians were very open to their own intentions, such as calling on the Merrians to surrender to "save your city from destruction". The Athenians obviously realized that the Merians were a weak military force. They called merian "weak" and "inferior" and thought that "this was not a fair battle". After a long discussion, the Merians still refused to surrender. Constantinakopoulou (2012: 50) pointed out that in ancient times, Greek islands such as Melos often maintained their unique island culture and were proud of their independence. All men of service age died, and they sold women and children as slaves (Warner 1985: 408). Meyer (1999: 524-525) said that this action was approved by the Athens People's Assembly and involved the murder of about 1500 men. Besides, we should not regard the decision to sacrifice the lives of women and children and sell them as slaves as an act of kindness, but as a supplement to the killing of men in order to eradicate and destroy merian's society and culture.
As in the last example, the Athenians seem to have a clear intention to destroy the Merrians as a group and a culture. This is a warning to Athenian allies all over Greece to remain loyal in the war with Sparta. The massacre in Melos was considered unusual at that time, which is surprising considering that the brutal war between the two countries has lasted for 15 years. A few months after the Holocaust, euripides, an Athenian playwright, wrote a dramatic play "Trojan Women", which may directly draw lessons from the Melos Massacre to focus on condemning the cruelty of war. Based on the period after the fall of Troy, the play turns from the heroic view of the heroic war to the consideration of the sufferings of the wives and children of the failed city leaders, who are taken to the ship to face the slavery in Greece (Murray 20 1 1).
conclusion
In short, we studied how to define the concept of genocide during and after the Second World War. We note that genocide must include two clear elements: the clear intention to carry out the action and the resulting destruction of the entire unique group. Then, we discuss how to apply this definition to two important events in the ancient world, namely, the Roman occupation of Carthage and the massacre in Athens, to prove that these events may have constituted genocide.