Rome’s declaration of war was contingent on Carthage’s acceptance of Hannibal’s taking of Saguntum, where Carthage could have disavowed Hannibal and maintained peace. However, to even engage with this prospect, Carthage would have had to accept the terms of the offence and the interpretation presented by the Roman embassy of the treaty they held together. According to Polybius, the Carthaginian senate threw out the offence as a misinterpretation of the treaty, as well as arguing over which treaty was in place at that time.
Tag Archives: Essays
Italian and English: Passive voice compared
The passive voice is a syntactic relationship that foregrounds the undergoer of an
argument and backgrounds the actor, compared to the active voice which does the
opposite. Italian and English both use periphrastic passives, utilising an auxiliary
verb and conjugating the main verb into the past participle form.
The accession of Darius the Great
Darius’s accession to the throne follows from a few major plot points. Firstly, that Cambyses, son of Cyrus and king of the empire, kills his brother Bardiya. Secondly, that the Magian Gaumata installs a monarch on the throne pretending to be Bardiya rebelling from Cambyses. Thirdly, that Cambyses dies. And fourthly, that the Persians retake the empire and Darius is installed as monarch.
Variation in Fijian: Boumaa and Standard Fijian compared
Boumaa is a variety of Fijian spoken primarily on the island of Taveuni off the coast of Vanua Levu. Taveuni is quite geographically removed from the island of Bau from where Standard Fijian originally emerged, but the Eastern Fijian dialect chain, of which Boumaa and Standard Fijian are both part, distinctly crosses the archipelago.
Nicholas K Watson 