Journal of the plague year? DeFoe?

The Decameron!

Doh! Yes, the Decameron, by Bocaccio. No wikipedia used I swear!

Hmmmm..... I can believe what has been given as an explanation for decades or reject it based on some dude that played Jeopardy that gives a explanation that is similar but not exact to snopes answer... Sorry, but the dude and snopes answer assume that because no one wrote down the black death explanation until the mid 1900's thus negating it's being plausible origin... That isn't proof, that is simply another theory... One that ignores the fact that printed type was only invented 100 years after the black death and during the earliest years it was used for religious purposes which describing the true meaning of a nursery game would have been way out of place... In fact one has to wonder when going to the expense of documenting the meaning would have been justified... In the earliest days doing so wouldn't have been very likely, but because no one did we are now asked to accept that it is the reason the black death explanation is a myth.

Sorry, but this explanation is a nice theory but not something that can be accepted on it's face as fact. The explanation about the black death is just as plausible.

thomas998 wrote:Hmmmm..... I can believe what has been given as an explanation for decades or reject it based on some dude that played Jeopardy that gives a explanation that is similar but not exact to snopes answe... Sorry, but the dude and snopes answer assume that because no one wrote down the black death explanation until the mid 1900's thus negating it's being plausible origin... That isn't proof, that is simply another theory... One that ignores the fact that printed type was only invented 100 years after the black death and during the earliest years it was used for religious purposes which describing the true meaning of a nursery game would have been way out of place... In fact one has to wonder when going to the expense of documenting the meaning would have been justified... In the earliest days doing so wouldn't have been very likely, but because no one did we are now asked to accept that it is the reason the black death explanation is a myth.

Sorry, but this explanation is a nice theory but not something that can be accepted on it's face as fact. The explanation about the black death is just as plausible.

I agree! Also I never heard the ashes part being attributed to sneezing but to bodies being burned. It may not be true but I think it is just as possible as Mr. Jennings interpretation of the story. Anything that is that old with little documentation cannot be stated as a fact but at most a theory.

thomas998 wrote:One that ignores the fact that printed type was only invented 100 years after the black death and during the earliest years it was used for religious purposes which describing the true meaning of a nursery game would have been way out of place

So if there's no written record, what's the basis for the claim that the poem is about the plague? It sounds plausible?

You can't have it both ways.

No, you can't have it both ways. That is true. But without actual evidence one way or the other you can't really have it either way. You are left choosing whatever sounds the most plausible. For some that might be the plague theory. For others that might be the nonsense theory. Bottom line is that there is no actual evidence for or against either one.

shadowfirez wrote:I agree! Also I never heard the ashes part being attributed to sneezing but to bodies being burned. It may not be true but I think it is just as possible as Mr. Jennings interpretation of the story. Anything that is that old with little documentation cannot be stated as a fact but at most a theory.

It is funny how you missed the basis of his thesis. They can trace the origins of this to the 1800s, not Medieval times.

"But no professional folklorist believes this story. “Rosie”-like children’s rhymes are attested back to around 1800, and the oldest forms have little in common with the supposed “Black Death” lyrics."

Aliens from the Betelgeuse system might have written it and taught it to humans as a form of gloating, foreshadowing their planned destruction of our planet in December of this year. Without evidence, there's really no way to rule it out.

craigthom wrote:So if there's no written record, what's the basis for the claim that the poem is about the plague? It sounds plausible?

You can't have it both ways.

Not trying to have it both ways... simply pointing out that there is little reason to believe that people in the earliest days of printed material when the cost of printing was not cheap would have said, "Gee Wally, I think we need to print a book about the true meaning of nursery rhymes."

A reasonable person would realize that such a written record would be unlikely at best. Only when printed type was much more prevalent did we start to see pointless material being published and the history of nursery rhymes would fit squarely into the pointless material category. Evidence that this type of material is pretty well documented by the fact that the "Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes" that Jennings uses as some of his supporting evidence was not published until 1951... so 500 years after the invention of movable type printing presses are invented someone finally decides to print a history of the rhymes... clearly a lot of things can happen in the 500 years between the plague and a book detailing nursery rhymes.

How many books have been lost forever during that time? thousands, maybe tens of thousands... no one can know for certain, but it is known that books do not last forever even a book one would expect people to try and save like the Gutenberg Bible has had more copies vanish than remain.. of 200 paper copies only 15 are left, so over a 90% elimination of a book people would not be likely to handle carelessly... and we are willing to accept that detailed a nursery rhyme must surely exist 500 years after it would have been written, just how asinine an assumption is that.

I do not fully believe that it is about the plague but am even less inclined to believe that it is not simply because no one wrote that fact down in the 14th century.

jowoodall wrote:It is funny how you missed the basis of his thesis. They can trace the origins of this to the 1800s, not Medieval times.

"But no professional folklorist believes this story. “Rosie”-like children’s rhymes are attested back to around 1800, and the oldest forms have little in common with the supposed “Black Death” lyrics."

If I get a hound dog and teach it to look backwards from prey instead of forwards... I then go to the carcass of a dead deer and have the hound dog backtrack the deer's trail, at some point the dog will lose its scent and the trail will end. It wont end at the vagina of the deer's mother, the trail will end way before that point but simply because it ends by a creek I wouldn't be so stupid as to say, "right here is where the deer came into being, tis proof that deer are spawned by creeks."

I understand exactly what Jennings is trying to claim, and it fails on many levels... one of which is the foolish belief that the oldest written reference to an event is end all be all beginning of said event.

shadowfirez wrote:I agree! Also I never heard the ashes part being attributed to sneezing but to bodies being burned. It may not be true but I think it is just as possible as Mr. Jennings interpretation of the story. Anything that is that old with little documentation cannot be stated as a fact but at most a theory.

It's pretty well documented that medieval Europeans didn't burn their dead, even the sick ones. It was considered barbaric and desecration of a corpse, punishable by law. Only heretics were burned, and then it was a form of punishment.

I disagree with the thesis that, in the lack of firm evidence, all explanations are equally likely. Lack of evidence for a fanciful explanation is a reason to doubt that explanation, especially when there has been time (centuries) and opportunity (a widely-known cultural artifact) for evidence to be discovered.

It's not really true that printing was limited to "important" subjects after the introduction of movable-type printing to Europe. A quick sample of some of the titles/subjects printed in the 50 years following Gutenberg shows a high percentage of the trivial and idiosyncratic.

If we accept the idea that Ring Around the Rosie goes back to the time of the plague, we must also answer the lack of evidence problem in its mirror image. How did we finally find out "the truth"? There is no known mention of the game until around 1800, and no mention of the plague connection until 1950. We have to assume, as previously discussed, that the knowledge of the true meaning of the game was passed down orally for six hundred years, without anyone choosing to write it down. Then we must accept that for the one hundred and fifty years (1800-1950), when people did print information specifically about this rhyme, none of them revealed the "true" story. So who revealed the "true" story around 1950, what evidence did they rely on, and how could they have discovered and verified that evidence?

The 1950's "researchers" must have either found written evidence that no one else has ever seen, or had a large and diverse enough group of oral informants, to make the story credible. Yet no other researcher has found these oral informants. To me, this is the weakest part of the story- that good evidence could have somehow made it to select researchers around 1950, without ever being found by others before or since.

Wormholes may be involved.

It seems like this shouldn't be so hard. If the rhyme has a distinct meaning, then the metaphors should have been known.

While the printing press wasn't around at the time, there are plenty of diaries and correspondence from the era. Which of the backstory's facets can we authenticate in period writings?

• Plague victims or their sores referred to as "rosies" or roses,
  
• Burning of plague victims (or sneezing as a symptom), or
  
• Period reference to the rhyme?
  

I'll give you bouquets (posies) used to cover the smell of the dead.

However, sneezing is not a prominent symptom. The plague could be communicated through sneezes, but I think you'd have to believe in Germ Theory to know that.

Alternatively, the Catholic Church has almost always considered cremation to be very, very sacreligious, essentially denying the resurrection. Eastern Orthodox wasn't any more liberal. Protestants were, but only relatively recently (not that they were a "thing" at the time).

So, we have one positive identification and one negative identification, leaving "rosy" the one that would take real research. Also, mention of the rhyme in correspondence in any context would be helpful in authenticating the story.

Unless one of those is found, the plague story is hard to swallow.

It seems like "we're running in circles picking roses and getting dizzy" sounds like the most likely interpretation. It's what the rhyme actually says, after all. Metaphor would be more confusing than instructive, at that point. It would be like dropping your actual kids off at the local pool and telling someone you need to drop the kids off at the pool, "if you know what I mean."

nekoninda wrote:I disagree with the thesis that, in the lack of firm evidence, all explanations are equally likely. Lack of evidence for a fanciful explanation is a reason to doubt that explanation, especially when there has been time (centuries) and opportunity (a widely-known cultural artifact) for evidence to be discovered.

It's not really true that printing was limited to "important" subjects after the introduction of movable-type printing to Europe. A quick sample of some of the titles/subjects printed in the 50 years following Gutenberg shows a high percentage of the trivial and idiosyncratic.

Yet do you have any titles during that time period that relate to children's games? And that also is now 150 years past the time of the plague and given the short life expectancy during that time you are several generation removed from the actual event.... Now this all assumes as the whole discussion as assumed that the black plague in question was the one that swept Europe in the mid 1300's, however it is also possible that the plague in question was not that one at all and was the one in 1665 in London.

nekoninda wrote:If we accept the idea that Ring Around the Rosie goes back to the time of the plague, we must also answer the lack of evidence problem in its mirror image. How did we finally find out "the truth"? There is no known mention of the game until around 1800, and no mention of the plague connection until 1950. We have to assume, as previously discussed, that the knowledge of the true meaning of the game was passed down orally for six hundred years, without anyone choosing to write it down. Then we must accept that for the one hundred and fifty years (1800-1950), when people did print information specifically about this rhyme, none of them revealed the "true" story. So who revealed the "true" story around 1950, what evidence did they rely on, and how could they have discovered and verified that evidence?

The 1950's "researchers" must have either found written evidence that no one else has ever seen, or had a large and diverse enough group of oral informants, to make the story credible. Yet no other researcher has found these oral informants. To me, this is the weakest part of the story- that good evidence could have somehow made it to select researchers around 1950, without ever being found by others before or since.

The fact that the mention of the rhyme is first seen in the 1800's might also lead to the conclusion that the song was not about the original plague but about the one in 1665. Now you are getting closer to a connection between the event and the song.

In the end the lack of a written record really seems to be the sticking point for you. Do you also believe that nothing existed until it was written down? Imagine you are walking in the woods alone and see a rabbit cross the trail... you return home and go about your business never to say anything or record what you saw... 50 years from now you tell someone about the rabbit... should they disbelieve you simply because you didn't tell anyone or write it down when it happened? Suppose the only person you told was your grandson who tell no one for another 50 years before he decides to write a book about his grandfather, in the book he states that you saw a rabbit... it is now 100 years after the event that it is written down does that mean that in your eyes the rabbit didn't exist because it wasn't recorded in a timely manner?

jcolag wrote:It seems like this shouldn't be so hard. If the rhyme has a distinct meaning, then the metaphors should have been known.

While the printing press wasn't around at the time, there are plenty of diaries and correspondence from the era. Which of the backstory's facets can we authenticate in period writings?

• Plague victims or their sores referred to as "rosies" or roses,
  
• Burning of plague victims (or sneezing as a symptom), or
  
• Period reference to the rhyme?
  

I'll give you bouquets (posies) used to cover the smell of the dead.

However, sneezing is not a prominent symptom. The plague could be communicated through sneezes, but I think you'd have to believe in Germ Theory to know that.

Alternatively, the Catholic Church has almost always considered cremation to be very, very sacreligious, essentially denying the resurrection. Eastern Orthodox wasn't any more liberal. Protestants were, but only relatively recently (not that they were a "thing" at the time).

So, we have one positive identification and one negative identification, leaving "rosy" the one that would take real research. Also, mention of the rhyme in correspondence in any context would be helpful in authenticating the story.

Unless one of those is found, the plague story is hard to swallow.

It seems like "we're running in circles picking roses and getting dizzy" sounds like the most likely interpretation. It's what the rhyme actually says, after all. Metaphor would be more confusing than instructive, at that point. It would be like dropping your actual kids off at the local pool and telling someone you need to drop the kids off at the pool, "if you know what I mean."

Actually you are making what could also be an error in your interpretation... you are assuming that the "ashes ashes" was in reference to cremation, as you point out cremation was not a common practice.. however if the song was about the 1665 London plague then their are account of the clothes and sometimes homes of the victims being burned while the bodies were buried in mass pits... Now if you imagine a town where many homes are burned to the ground you will also easily imagine lots of ashes floating down, more so than if it were only the bodies of victims being burned...

Now if you go with the version that is "atishoo atishoo" instead of "ashes asches" then your assumption that sneezing isn't a symptom is correct, but it also ignore other common practices at the time of the 1665 plague that included burning incense or sometime flashes of gun powdered in the believe that it would help to cleanse a home and make it safe again... One can easily imagine that incense and smoke is going to make people sneeze and could also be a plausible reason for the "atishoo atishoo"... there are simply many possibilities, in short it is a bit like deciding if you wish to believe in God... no one can know with certainty, so you have to make a choice based on your preference.

If someone believes it was about the plague I have no clear evidence to the contrary... if someone chooses not to believe it is related to the plague then again I have no clear evidence that they are wrong either... to each his own.

However someone like Jennings seems like an arrogant prick in his assertion something is a myth because they don't personally believe it.

OK, let's be logical for a moment.

When I was learning to think critically, we were told "If you see hoof prints, think horses, not zebras." In simple terms, the most common explanation is the most likely one. We were also told that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Which is more likely, that a song about dancing in a circle and putting flowers in your pockets is about dancing in a circle and putting flowers in your pockets or that it was a vague metaphor for a disease that had been extremely rare for over 100 years? Without some solid evidence that there is a zebra in the area, you would be foolish to make the extraordinary claim that the hoof prints weren't from horses. Without some evidence of a plague connection -other than it sounds plausible, and some anonymous rumor in the 1960s claimed it was so- to defend the story as anything but bunk is foolhardy. Combine this with the fact that people make up clever "historical" connections with common phrases and pass them off as "the untold truth" on a surprisingly regular basis, and it's doubly foolhardy to cling to this myth.

Time to put the "Ring Around the Rosie = the plague" story in the same category as the lists of "Rules for Teachers" and "What Things Used to Cost" where it belongs; in the category of plausible sounding things many people believe but have no basis in truth.

thomas998 wrote:...It wont end at the vagina of the deer's mother..."

This is my favorite quote of the day.

thomas998 wrote:If someone believes it was about the plague I have no clear evidence to the contrary... if someone chooses not to believe it is related to the plague then again I have no clear evidence that they are wrong either... to each his own.

Hmm. Kind of. But only if we're dealing with it purely as trivia.

On the other hand, a children's nursery rhyme has some anthropological significance and literary interest, which might open up new avenues of inquiry.

Consider that, if it's about the plague (or any disease), then there's a huge question of who created it, why, how it became popular, and how the meaning was lost until someone in the 1950s cracked the code.

But I still do think that something of the story needs documentation. You point out flaws in my details, rightly, but that just lengthens the list of items that should be found in period texts but aren't.

That's the way I look at it, at least. This sort of search for "real meaning" needs support from primary sources. It's not enough to imagine a connection with our modern brains, but rather to show that some people living through the events made those connections.

Otherwise, I feel like it's just taking one line of dialogue from a Honeymooners episode out of context to "prove" that Ralph and Ed were secretly bank robbers, lovers, or surfers.

Overall, I think this column was a better attempt than the Lindbergh story a while back. That one seemed to boil down to, "it's not true, as long as the legend is phrased lazily and leaves out parts everybody knows."

And "London Bridge is Falling Down" isn't really about a bridge falling down, it's about Lloyd Bridges' Great Great Great Great Great grandfather, London, who was into slap-stick humor (imagine that).

theroseknows wrote:No, you can't have it both ways. That is true. But without actual evidence one way or the other you can't really have it either way. You are left choosing whatever sounds the most plausible. For some that might be the plague theory. For others that might be the nonsense theory. Bottom line is that there is no actual evidence for or against either one.

No, without any evidence you don't chose either. You admit that you don't know. You don't just make something up, claim it as fact, and then defend that by saying, "well, it could have happened".

The correct response to not knowing something is to admit that you don't know it.

thomas998 wrote:In the end the lack of a written record really seems to be the sticking point for you. Do you also believe that nothing existed until it was written down? Imagine you are walking in the woods alone and see a rabbit cross the trail... you return home and go about your business never to say anything or record what you saw... 50 years from now you tell someone about the rabbit... should they disbelieve you simply because you didn't tell anyone or write it down when it happened? Suppose the only person you told was your grandson who tell no one for another 50 years before he decides to write a book about his grandfather, in the book he states that you saw a rabbit... it is now 100 years after the event that it is written down does that mean that in your eyes the rabbit didn't exist because it wasn't recorded in a timely manner?

You miss my point. Billions of things happen every day, about which there is no record. This doesn't mean that they didn't happen, just that it is silly to insist that we can later find out what really happened. Revelations made in 1950 about the deep past need a credible chain of knowledge to that past event.

Taking your story of the grandfather, grandson, and the rabbit, supposing that the grandson reported that his grandfather had seen a dinosaur? Would you believe it? Probably not, because most of us think dinosaurs were extinct a hundred years ago. How about a claim of seeing Bigfoot? How about if the claim was seeing an elephant walking in the local woods? Assuming we are in Europe or North America, it's possible, but very unlikely. Should we believe it, because this grandson says it happened? No, not if we are critical thinkers. It might have happened, but lacking better evidence, there is no way to distinguish between a real event, a hypothetical possibility, and a fabrication.

Jump forward a couple of more generations. In 1950, it is irresponsible to report anything as truth, on the basis of a the remembered stories of a single family or family member from several dozen generations ago. Oral tradition is very tenuous at best. A single witness is weak evidence for a recent event. All the more for an event deep in the past.

I always enjoy the Debunker columns, but I have to agree that this debunk is either speculative or poorly-written. The article implies that the earliest known versions are from the 1800's, but doesn't deny the possibility of older versions. He tells us that the oldest [known] versions have little in common lyrically with the modern version, but tells us nothing about the differences. Finally, the assumption is made that the modern version of the song couldn't be related to the Bubonic Plague because, per his information, the original version wasn't. That's like saying that the modified version of Jingle Bells isn't actually about Batman, Robin, and the Joker because the original version had nothing to do with them.

I'm fine with the truth of the matter lying on either side of the debate, but this is one of the less-impressive Debunks we've gotten from Sir Ken. It's a tough job; better luck next time.

Thanks to the man himself for weighing in on the discussion. I would argue (against a vastly superior intelligence) that if neither side fulfills the burden of proof, either answer remains plausible. Furthermore, your statements seem to be focused on debunking the theory that the rhyme dates back to and references the Bubonic Plague, whereas if it's a more recent alteration made in reference to the black death the historicity of the rhyme is less important to the argument, though the theory likewise becomes less glamorous than a children's rhyme dating back to and referencing one of the greatest epidemics in recorded human history.

And I might add, shame on you, Ken Jennings, for zero woots purchased! If these are our role models... ;)

whoiskenjennings wrote:The "either answer remains plausible" thing ignores Occam's Razor. A children's poem APPEARS to be about dancing in flowers. So is it about dancing in flowers...or a grisly epidemic? Uh, absent ANY EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER for the second thing, then the first thing, of course.

Is plausible explication not evidence? Of course, if some of the popular explication offers us false information, such as there being no evidence of the explanation of the posies, then it loses weight. Besides, Occam's Razor is a principle, not a theorem, and while it has many positive applications, it can also stifle investigation when the correct answer doesn't meet the burden of proof due to inadequate evidence.

You've pretty much swayed me to the "it's bunk" side of the argument, but I often have a beef with the step-by-step of logically-posited arguments - assumptions and leaps of faith bother me particularly.

Editing this in: I have no problem with the debunk stating that there's no evidence of the assertion about the rhyme's subject matter, where I balk is the jump from "no evidence" to outright denial.

whoiskenjennings wrote:But that's exactly how the scientific method works. Demonstrating that there's no evidence for a hypothesis--and that there's better evidence for a simpler, contradictory hypothesis--is exactly how bad theories get "debunked." What smoking gun were you expecting here? A first edition of the poem with a postscript like "PS: By the way, this poem is not about the plague"?

That's why they don't give BS degrees in literature and history (that I know of) - the scientific method gets quite shaky with liberal arts. They're about interpretation and coming up with one's best guess about something that is not verifiable, at least not to the extent that scientific laws are.

For example, let's posit this scenario - in the 18th century, the original version of this song was written and became popular. Sometime later, a mischievous rogue thought it would be funny to alter the song to include veiled references to the Bubonic Plague. Eventually, his version became the most recorded in writing and later in audio and became the de facto standard version. In the 1950's, someone caught the references, and here we are today.

Did it happen that way? Probably not, but there's nothing in the evidence that debunks this theory. The incomplete and biased nature of historical record means it's often impossible to determine something like this to the point of certainty.

I respect (and generally agree with) the conclusion and I love the weekly column, I just don't think this is the most shining example in the batch, if only because you make a statement of certainty when the evidence leaves distinct holes in the debunk.

Actually, "Rosie" was a generic name they gave to witches at that time, at a time when coins had large holes in them that you could put your finger through. So putting a "ring around the rosie" was about paying your local witch a coin for her services.

"Pocket full of posies" alluded to one particular ailment that prevented women for having children. The idea was to put posies in the undergarments of both the man and the woman, for about a week before ovulation. The couple would them burn them together in a small dish, hence "ashes to ashes". The aroma of the burning posies was slightly narcotic, and was considered to be somewhat of an aphrodisiac. The phrase "we all fall down" referred to both the euphoric effect of the smoke as well as the act of falling into bed together. Much like current times when the effects of drinking too much alcohol can sometimes lead to unplanned pregnancies, except that pregnancy was the desired outcome.

When "rosies" fell out of favor and were later burned at the stake for their activities, the practice was forgotten, but the song lives on.

What, you don't believe me?

Xexus wrote:Actually, "Rosie" was a generic name they gave to witches at that time, at a time when coins had large holes in them that you could put your finger through. So putting a "ring around the rosie" was about paying your local witch a coin for her services.

"Pocket full of posies" alluded to one particular ailment that prevented women for having children. The idea was to put posies in the undergarments of both the man and the woman, for about a week before ovulation. The couple would them burn them together in a small dish, hence "ashes to ashes". The aroma of the burning posies was slightly narcotic, and was considered to be somewhat of an aphrodisiac. The phrase "we all fall down" referred to both the euphoric effect of the smoke as well as the act of falling into bed together. Much like current times when the effects of drinking too much alcohol can sometimes lead to unplanned pregnancies, except that pregnancy was the desired outcome.

When "rosies" fell out of favor and were later burned at the stake for their activities, the practice was forgotten, but the song lives on.

What, you don't believe me?

Well, it's plausible (even though you just made it up) so some here would insist that it cannot be dismissed.

Maybe not, but the Hokey Pokey really is about drug addicted Canadian miners.

ytk wrote:Maybe not, but the Hokey Pokey really is about drug addicted Canadian miners.

That's what it's all aboot?

fatdragon wrote:That's why they don't give BS degrees in literature and history (that I know of) - the scientific method gets quite shaky with liberal arts. They're about interpretation and coming up with one's best guess about something that is not verifiable, at least not to the extent that scientific laws are.

For example, let's posit this scenario - in the 18th century, the original version of this song was written and became popular. Sometime later, a mischievous rogue thought it would be funny to alter the song to include veiled references to the Bubonic Plague. Eventually, his version became the most recorded in writing and later in audio and became the de facto standard version. In the 1950's, someone caught the references, and here we are today.

Did it happen that way? Probably not, but there's nothing in the evidence that debunks this theory. The incomplete and biased nature of historical record means it's often impossible to determine something like this to the point of certainty.

I respect (and generally agree with) the conclusion and I love the weekly column, I just don't think this is the most shining example in the batch, if only because you make a statement of certainty when the evidence leaves distinct holes in the debunk.

My alma mater, North Carolina State University, certainly offers a B.S. in History.

This whole issue is similar to the whole notion that, after defeating the Carthaginians and razing Carthage to the ground, the Romans supposedly plowed the ground with salt, when in fact this story was invented by a British historian in 1930 (as Ridley showed in 1986), and within a generation Carthage was itself the center of a thriving Roman agricultural province.

tedgellar wrote:My alma mater, North Carolina State University, certainly offers a B.S. in History.

This whole issue is similar to the whole notion that, after defeating the Carthaginians and razing Carthage to the ground, the Romans supposedly plowed the ground with salt, when in fact this story was invented by a British historian in 1930 (as Ridley showed in 1986), and within a generation Carthage was itself the center of a thriving Roman agricultural province.

Even without physical evidence, the "salting the ground" story can be dismissed with simple logic. Salt was very valuable in those days. Roman legions were often paid in salt as a unofficial currency. Saying the Romans tried to ruin the soil with salt is the equivalent of saying that out of spite they littered the ground with gold and silver.

RWoodward wrote:Even without physical evidence, the "salting the ground" story can be dismissed with simple logic. Salt was very valuable in those days. Roman legions were often paid in salt as a unofficial currency. Saying the Romans tried to ruin the soil with salt is the equivalent of saying that out of spite they littered the ground with gold and silver.

Sort of. You're right on the value of salt, and its occasional use as a means of pay (hence the phrase "worth his salt"). But there were ancient Near Eastern traditions that involved salting the ground as a means of deconsecration or of commemoration of conquest, and these were evidently what certain early-20th-century historians conflated into the fable of plowing the ground with salt.

And of course essentially no physical evidence of such a thing could survive: salt doesn't last that long, and other possible physical signs would just as probably point to a variety of other dispositions or outcomes.