Roma e a representação de domínio do mundo no contexto das guerras púnicas : uma leitura das Histórias, de Políbio

Abstract

During the period of the Punic Wars a fundamental change in Roman history occurred. The Roman nobility, once dominant in the Italic Peninsula, becomes the greatest Mediterranean power. But in the same period the way power is expressed by that nobility – in its political positioning before other people – and the concept of what is to be a Roman change. This study tries to demonstrate that this behaviour and conceptual changes were a result of the production process of “world” domination identity and representation, process generated by the interrelationships between Romans and Carthaginians in that period. The textual source for the study is the work of Polybius, the Histories, the oldest contemporaneous narrative of the Punic Wars we have today. The analysis of the source was made by the perspective of the historic transmission of significances, and the apprehension of those significances as symbols which expresses through the actions, behaviours and attitudes transcribed by Polybius, as long as the opinions and interpretations of the Greek historian, individual and group – as they are part of the narrative – dispositions and motivations. According to this analysis the interrelations between Romans and Carthaginians during the Punic Wars were responsible for that production of identity and representation of “world” domination, and “otherness” regarding the Carthaginians – as the identity depends on the difference –, “otherness” symbolized on Hannibal, perceived as the reification of Carthage. In other words, during the Punic Wars the way reality was perceived by the Romans changed. Therefore, those interactions generated a new way of Roman acting: their attitudes before other people translate a highly imposing discourse which expresses the new Roman imaging of the “world” as dominated. Other result provided by this study is that the beginnings of the dissention inside the Roman nobility occurred after the Second Punic War, partly because of the same production of identity and representation of the “world” as a Roman dominion.