Sometime after the cease-fire following the second Lebanon war took effect, somebody asked me, while we both sipped our morning espresso at our neighborhood cafe: "Who was that Cato the Elder, whom people quote so often?" I answered that he was a Roman senator (234-149 B.C.E.) who, prior to the third Punic War, made it a habit to conclude any speech of his, on whatever subject (remember, we are talking 150 B.C.E.), by saying: "Carthago delenda est" - meaning "Also, Carthage, methinks, ought utterly to be destroyed" (as translated by John Dryden).

I then went to check whether Cato the Elder's saw is still being quoted. And, indeed, many contemporary politicians and commentators, here and abroad, make use of this historical rhetorical ploy, by concluding their pontifications on any given subject with this formula: "Also" - here you take your pick from a long list: Al-Qaida, Hezbollah, Hamas, terror, Islam, Israel, Arabs, Palestinians, Americans or any "other" - "methinks, ought utterly to be destroyed."

Come to think of it, Cato should have patented that formulation; it is unbeatable. When you repeatedly call for the destruction of something or someone and it actually happens, you can say "I told you so." When the sought-after destruction occurs, but you also are destroyed in the process, chances are that nobody will feel like remonstrating with you. If he, she or it are not utterly destroyed, but you are (and are still able to talk) - aren't you fully justified in saying, "Didn't I tell you so?" You can't lose with Cato's ruse.

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Incidentally, Cato was not his name; it was Marcus Porcius Priscus. The Romans called a skillful or experienced man Catus. The person in question was nicknamed "the Elder" to distinguish him from his great-grandson, Cato the Philosopher. Plutarch, writing in 75 C.E., tells us that he was an able warrior and farmer, who fought with his soldiers and worked with his slaves, sharing their food and their lot. He was a man of impeccable personal qualities, a man of real Roman values, much admired by his contemporaries. A gifted orator, Cato served his fellow citizens in many public offices, achieving his fame as censor - a sort of state comptroller for public morals. Plutarch extols his virtues, but even he finds fault with Cato's excessive capitalism: He would buy his slaves young, healthy and cheap, and sell them the moment they were of no further use to him.

Public nuisance

Cato the Elder was thus respected in his time, but it is doubtful if he was popular. He used to harangue the Romans by saying things like: "It is a difficult task, O citizens, to make speeches to the belly which has no ears." He was an adamant critic of Greek philosophy, which - in his opinion - had a demoralizing effect on Roman morals and values. With his constant harping on "Carthago delenda est," he (probably intentionally) made himself a public nuisance.

Fifty years after Rome achieved its complete victory over Carthage, at the end of the second Punic War, Carthage, disarmed, was paying a huge yearly ransom. Also, there was a line marked in the sand by the Romans, and if the Carthagians crossed it, that would be a provocation leading to immediate war. But Carthage managed to recover economically. It's neighbors, the Numidians, aware of the limitations imposed on Carthage's military might, kept provoking them. The Carthagians complained to Rome, and rearmed themselves. It was their bad luck that Cato the Elder was dispatched by Rome to broker a truce between them and the Numidians.

Plutarch writes that "Cato realized that Carthage was too weak to overcome Rome, but he thought it was too great to be despised by them." But he also saw that "his countrymen were growing wanton and insolent, obstinate and disobedient." What better way to rally the people than to unite them in a patriotic call to arms? Plutarch writes that Cato thus sparked the third Punic War. Many historians see it as a most unjustified, cruel and senseless slaughter of a civilian population, unparalleled until the world wars.

Rome declared war on Carthage in 149 B.C.E. Carthage surrendered immediately and unconditionally. It complied with a demand to send 300 of its best youth as hostages, and to disarm the city totally. Luckily for the Romans, Carthage was indeed heavily armed, so Rome did have a formal excuse for war. But even the contemporary Greek historian Polybius, writing in the Roman camp, goes to great lengths to include in his formal history of the war comments (cunningly attributed to the Greeks) critical of Rome's treacherous ways of conducting that war.

The Romans did not think disarming and surrender was enough. They demanded that the Carthagians abandon their city, and relocate at least 10 miles from the seashore - a death sentence for a world trade power dependent on the merchant marine. When the Carthagians balked, Scipio Aemilianus ordered the destruction of the city by fire, and hundreds of thousands of men, women and children were slaughtered by Roman soldiers.

Polybius, the tutor of Scipio Aemilianus, was by his side when he ordered (in 146 B.C.E.) the attack on the town. "Scipio burst into tears ... grasped me by the hand and said: 'O Polybius, it is a grand thing, but, I know not how, I feel a terror and dread, lest some one should one day give the same order about my own native city' ... In the midst of supreme success for one's self and of a disaster for the enemy, to take thought of one's own position and of the possible reverse which may come, is the characteristic of a great man."

Cato the Elder was a great man. But on the whole, I think that Scipio's words are worth quoting more than Cato's, preferably before giving an order to annihilate a city - and ideally before even considering such an order. But history teaches us that nobody ever learns anything from history.