It’s never too late to shake hands and become friends. Seriously, never. For proof of this, we can look at the events of 30 years ago, when the mayors of Rome and Carthage signed a peace treaty officially ending the Punic Wars on February 5, 1985. (The Punic Wars, incidentally, hadn’t seen any fighting in over 2,100 years.)

Rome and Carthage were both major Mediterranean power centers in the ancient world, and were only separated by a few hundred miles. Not surprisingly, they didn’t always see eye to eye. In the third century BC, Carthage was the center of an existing empire centered in North Africa, and Rome was a city-state on the move. Their competing interests led to three wars over a century, called the Punic Wars. Great naval battles in the Mediterranean, Hannibal crossing the Alps on elephants…this is straight-up Punic War imagery. After each of the first two Punic Wars, Carthage found itself a little worse off than before, but not defeated.

Finally Rome had enough of Carthage’s...you know, being all Carthagey and whatnot, and decided to put an end to it. Over a three year period from 149-146 BC, Rome marched to Carthage and…to put it lightly…cleaned house. They sieged the city for three years before finally breaching the walls and burning it to the ground. (It doesn’t look like much fun for these people.) The Romans were even said to have salted the earth so nothing else could grow there, but this was probably a legend made up later. At any rate, Carthage was done. Rome expanded its power into North Africa, transitioned from a republic to an empire, and then fell. (This is the part where a clock spins in circles, or pages fly off the calendar.) Christ was born, the Middle Ages happened, Europe found the Americas, Rocky fought Mr. T. It’s safe to say the world moved on.

But here’s the thing. Rome had completely broken Carthage, but Carthage had never surrendered. No formal treaty had solemnized cessation of hostilities, so…by our modern standards of warfare…the Punic Wars had never officially ended. Recognizing this, and seeing an opportunity for a photo op, the mayors of Rome and a rebuilt Carthage met on this date 30 years ago in Tunis (the capital of Tunisia, less than 10 miles from Carthage), where they signed a peace treaty and a pact of friendship and cooperation. Rome was much less of a global power, and Carthage was much less…destroyed. Things had changed, and for the better. Rome and Carthage were at war longer than any of us have been alive, and today it’s all good. It goes to show that anything can be worked out with enough time.

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