8. Rome Was a Colony of Phoenicia
The Roman empire was secretly founded by Phoenicians too. This means much of the Western-European culture, which dominates the world today, did not actually originate in Europe. Its ultimate origins lie with the most ancient civilizations of the Fertile Crescent, whose all-powerful aristocrats spread their deceptive way of ruling over the entire globe.
Planning Rome as a Phoenician stronghold
The Phoenicians had evolved the general aristocratic deception to wearing entire nations as a disguise. Remember how the aristocrats tell their subjects it’s two nations when it’s really one? Also remember how the Phoenicians conquer their colonies in secrecy? Well, Rome was again just such a Phoenician colony.
The official history of Rome evolving out of small local tribes is an obvious joke: When Rome was founded, southern Italy already had so many many Greek colonies that it was called Magna Graecia. So the advanced powers were already there, no independent rival nation could form. There’s even many official traces of Phoenician settlement & trade in and around Italy, such as in Sicily, Ustica, Filicudi, Ischia, Capri, Elba, Tuscany, Populonia. So the hints to what really happened are there.
But as usual, you’ll get the full story only with pun-decryption:
The Phoenician lords wanted to loot Italy’s mineral resources. But apparently, even with all their legions of bronze-clad goons they could not conquer the region. Presumably, they could raid the coasts at whim, but would run into logistical problems on land when trying to secure long-term ore mining. Apparently, the Italian natives put up a very strong resistance. They were likely armed with bronze themselves, and their power hierarchies were probably still at a stage where not all rulers had turned into traitorous scum. So the Phoenicians needed a fortified stronghold. Rome was this Phoenician stronghold.
Both Livy & Virgil describe this secret Phoenician invasion of Italy, which created Rome:
In ancient times, this city was a colony held by Tyre, as a protective cover in Italy, against the tribesmen’s longstanding hostility, whose lands were rich in resources, but who were also zealous and fierce in combat.
Of all obtainable lands, the bronze traders wanted that one more than all others, to subordinate it, and to obtain it for settlement.
Here was it that their armies would be, here their ships would be. Here their kingdom of wealth over the nations would be, if it could be set up by fooling the people. For this they aimed for and encouraged themselves.
Generally, it was dangerous for the bronze to be obtained, both because local laws prevented this for foreigners, and also because the rural clans had always pledged to take vengeance on the foreign bronze traders, when they had tried to avoid these laws with military force. There had been many attempts to obtain it, all of which had led to insurrections and opposition by the local people, and defeat.
And thus they were looking for a fortified settlement, plus a false appearance as a wrapping veil for a covered-up invasion.
Phoenicians feign to be local Italians
We have already seen in the secret takeover of Greece that the Tyrians often gave themselves the false identity of Trojans. The founding myth of Rome officially says that “Trojans” founded Rome, so it was really the Tyrians.
When Phoenicians from Tyre then secretly invaded Italy, and colluded with the traitorous native Etruscan elites there, the subjects would not have accepted a foreign Tyrian ruler. Perhaps not even a “Trojan” one. So everyone had to refer to the Tyrian bronze-traders as Latins, which was a local name.
A veil was then made, so that the natives and the Tyrians would be similar. It would hardly have been permitted that a Tyrian ruler would be announced, appointed to elevation before the invasion of the bronze traders, and that he would show and display himself as a foreigner. So at once, a veil was introduced for the bronze traders to be hidden.
From there, the Tyrians who were known were concealed in this matter, and mingled among the already tamed prosperous and powerful Etruscan rulers, who could then rule the towns with their expenses and wealth. From the beginning, they had already fortified their prosperity through the start of the new city, and as it grew even more, that was enough to see what it really was for their neighbors. So for these things, they came to consider the Tyrians as partners in arms for concealment, and they joined them willingly.
The bronze traders were fearful of greater opposition forces, so in order to have the spirit of the natives unified, they not only ruled them all under the same conspiracy, but also had all their peoples be addressed as “Latins”. That the natives were not as devoted and faithful towards the ruling bronze traders as their own Tyrian subjects, this situation then ceased.
Still later, the Phoenician aristocrats had become the Romans, as we’ll see in the next sections.
(And for those Phoenician nobles in Europe who looked too oriental, or wanted to retain their language & script, a new disguise was invented, still popular today: the Jews.)
Local rulers betray Italy
As with countless other nations, the Phoenicians found willing traitors among the local Italian elites. In the aristocracy, rulers of all nations were already closer to each other than to their own subjects. Many were willing to betray them for more power. Not all aristocrats were total scum, but most were. Italy fell like the rest of the world, toppled from the top.
Livy confirms that the Phoenician trade was profitable for the local rulers. They helped with providing a cheap workforce for mining, and with shipping off the treasures in secret. A special port town was constructed, Lavinium, a harbor of the future Rome.
Secretly, the ruler of the natives, who then possessed this land, took his armed forces out of the city, and agreed for the foreigners to come into the land, to protect their assault.
He inquired then what materials they were seeking, where an opportunity for profit was to be mastered, or what they were seeking when they came into the land as enslavers.
He heard that the Tyrians had come in great numbers, that their leaders were bronze traders, acquiring and selling, that there was growth whereever they accomplished rulership, that this was profitable, and that they were looking for a place to settle down and to found a city.
And when he heard of their aristocracy, their strange clans of nobles, who were prepared to veil their plans in both war and peace, then he offered his right hand in the hope of establishing a future veiled project.
From there a treaty was struck between the leaders, and the way was free for joint administration.
The bronze traders were then held in secret hospitality. The local people were secretly harnessed for mining by the wealthy Phoenicians, and by deception were given to the bronze traders for governing.
This matter strengthened in the Tyrians the hope that they could finally appoint a stable and certain settlement for their bronze mining. They founded a town. The bronze traders named it after the name of their operation: “Cover-Up”.
No sight too rich and prosperous was allowed to come out in earnesty: Transport shipping was concealed, only the transporting natives and the hidden leaders from the Tyrians were admitted.
In Virgil’s version, the Phoenician invaders cannot defeat the native defenders who roam around their fortifications. Therefore, they offer a traitorous local ruler to marry into the Phoenician clans, if he helps them defeat his fellow countrymen.
Those indignant people raged around the fortresses, complaining and threatening mightily, but high above them sat another one as protection, holding official authority, to calm their souls and to control their anger.
If he did not do this, then they would indeed make the lesser nobles and servants run away from their territories quickly, and sweep the foreign rulers away through their hostilities.
But those all-powerful nobles had hidden themselves away in dens in the dark, as this they were fearing, and had placed above them armies and fortifications, and had instituted by fixed contract a ruler who would know when to repress, when to relax, and when to let loose the reins when commanded.
To him the bronze traders as his recruiters had used these words:
Foreigner, the rulers from among the richest and most refined patricians will give those agitated people to you, both to appease and to eliminate them with deceptions.
Those people are hostile to us Tyrians, and deny us this territory. They plan to to defeat us Phoenicians, and to expel us from Italy.
Strike violence into the defenders, overwhelm and overthrow that rabble, separate and scatter their communities in punishment!
We wealthy covered-up people have mistresses of excellent standing, of whom one of the noblest, from wealth and power, we will dedicate for marriage to you, to be your own in a lasting union.
We will enforce for you all that is due and proper for such designations, and will make you a noble, and the local proletarians will be your subjects.
In this story, it appears the traitor knew the secrets of the defenders, because as soon as he’s switched sides, they’re all captured.
The foreign ruler answered this: O rulers, whatever you wish to try out will be my work. For me, to carry out your command is only fitting.
You give to me whatever is in this kingdom, and for your scepter and your assistants it shall be provided. You grant me the riches to take my place among the wealthy, and make me a potentate of the multitudes and crowds.
Having said this, he struck in secret this pledge of his betrayal and deception.
And his hunters, as if they had been made a marching flock, wherever they had been given to obey, they rushed out and through the lands in this obscured treachery. Falling upon the men all as one from their secret abodes, they charged upon the notorious provokers repeatedly with strikes to break them, and devastation rolled towards the quarreling agitators.
Next there was the shouting of men and the creaking of ropes. Both the military servants and the common people from the contenders were taken away stealthily from out of the multitudes, and out of sight. The guilty resistors were attacked and destroyed in punishment. The little people were threatened, and the ignoble ones constantly trembled in the dark.
As they were being scattered like this, other strikes were carried out in the stretched-out north on hostile entrenchments, and the surge was carried to those settlements. All the remaining ones were subdued. But once those subjects were averted, leniency was given to the crowds overall.
Then followed a wave of likewise rushing the more remote rebel fortifications. Here, the highest among the agitators were hung up. And the crowds were divided in fear, as the agitators among them were uncovered. The agitation was struck into the sands.
Phoenicians torture the Italian rebels
According to Virgil, after the Phoenician lords had rooted out all resistance with the help of traitorous local elites, they personally tortured the rebels to death in cruel circus games, and then publicly hung up their mutilated corpses. If you ever think that our rulers are just merry hoaxers who tell benevolent lies, think again. They will rule through brutality just as readily as through deception.
The notorious were arrested with terror, and tortured in secret beneath the brutality of the highest nobles on special rocks — the Italians called these rocks “sacrificial altars”, for the method to crush people on them.
The provokers were tortured by the nobles into humbleness, and squeezed into submissiveness, miserable to be seen, and were struck on torturing instruments and on the ground in the arena.
Whenever any of the commoners and the filthy ones was carried in, the distinguished ones took him before everyone’s eyes, and a distinguished one from the top struck him on the backside in vengeance.
The leaders were executed and hung up, turned on their heads. Yet before that, the agitators were tortured three times at that same place in a circus show, and then swiftly destroyed on the smooth top surface of those rocks.
There were then reported and found quite a few among the vast crowds who had the weapons of those men, and lists, and treasures stolen from Tyre.
So finally now, the activities of those strong foreigners, their mighty acts, and those which had been carried out by their ancestors, and those of their powerful supporters, had been overcome in this country.
The hidden structures of support were all opened and received hostile inspections, and cracked open they fell apart.
So let’s all honor & remember those mighty acts of our ancestors, who managed to hold off the almighty Phoenician overlords for generations.
Phoenicians scale back the brutality
In Virgil’s version, the torturing & terrorizing creates so much fear in the local populations that a top-level ruler from the Phoenician homeland steps in, to govern Italy himself and steer it towards stability again.
This portrayal of top-level Phoenicians as the good guys, even relatively speaking, with lower officials & local traitors as bad guys, that looks like propaganda. So I don’t quite believe this part.
However, a few points from this story seem realistic:
- Under their clever disguises, our rulers are still capable of immense cruelty.
- However, they’ll often scale back open brutality in favor of deception, in a good-cop bad-cop game.
- Local aristocratic traitors were needed for secret invasions, but forced to take a back seat afterwards.
- Native puppet rulers were probably often switched for top-level Phoenicians, under various excuses & disguises.
Here’s how the text tells it:
Meanwhile, the great troubled uproar about this punishment and the military storm in Italy were perceived by none less than the highest ruler. And he saw how the lowly hard-pressed people were opposing the military apparatus, still heavily agitated.
And as he looked onto the now submissive people from his elevated noble status, he saw that a more gentle leader had to be displayed to the crowds.
All rebels had been destroyed by the bronze traders, he saw their armies already flattened, the agitators suppressed by the Tyrians, and their servants destroyed.
But this evil of his brothers the other bronze traders, and their wrath, could not lie hidden. He called the most violent suppressors to him, and he spoke to them thus:
Have you been possessed so greatly by your descent, and become overconfident? Now you have stirred up my territory and the dangerous subjects of mine, without my will, and have dared to excite the multitudes so greatly?
And now, who except myself could better calm the agitated, with such disturbance about? After this, they shall be appeased by myself, with a dissimilar secret disguise I will put on!
Haste your flight, and to this local king of yours say: The command over the ensnaring and the charming show is not his, but will be appointed to me. He only comprehends those immensely brutal, horrible methods, where you, violent ones, are at home. But now that foreign local ruler shall be placed into a mere theater, and be confined to an enclosed position of deception, and rule from there.
Thus he spoke. And as he then acted by this speech, he moved the excited common people to be quiet, and chased away the gatherings of the multitudes, and brought back silence. Kindness and intimidation were pressed simultaneously on the incited people, to push the zealous ones off their trouble-making.
Phoenicians enact fake terror to distract Italians
Finally, the Phoenicians then distract the local Italian populations with hoaxed terror, where they can be victims & heroes (as we saw in the article on hoaxed events).
At first, the actors were selected and prepared for this trick, who assumed the deceptive roles with passion. They were given a terrifying look and character all around, and would wear it to kindle the subjects.
Then they prepared the dresses worn to beguile the crowds. For the performers, armor was prepared, worn out stuff. It was adopted to be more savage and frightening for the subjects, so it was bruised up with stones.
The bronze traders distracted with some danger in the interior, but all the sights were just a joke, a cover they were aiming to be perceived, if anywhere during the playing of this deception they were seen. They would only present a staged display, or a deception, or a disguise for the populace, using their tools of secrecy.
Actual zealous foes were not there, only crafty mock players were seen in the delusion.
And after this, all human cattle would follow along by means of this cover, and along by this veil they could entertain the crowds.
While the tyrannical Phoenician lords fake-enact themselves as victims of anonymous barbarians, a clued-in speaker hypocritically laments their unjust deaths:
What great crime did my fellow bronze traders commit against you, what crime could the Tyrians possibly have done, that they have suffered so many deaths? That the Italian lands are entirely closed up against them, in a full circle?
Well, we know what crimes they committed. Sadly, most people don’t.
From here, the history of Phoenicia becomes the history of Rome. There’s many more texts to decrypt, but I’m all alone, so it’ll take a while…
Next: After Rome’s fake fall, the Phoenicians lived on, as the Franks, who were also a colony.