Did the Carthaginians really sacrifice babies in fire rituals, or was that Roman propaganda?

by Jerswar
OldPersonName

While more can always be said, this comes up quite a bit actually!

This post has responses from u/sunagainstgold and u/yodatsracist and at least one older post in there gets referenced.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7pf3ns/in_punic_nightmares_dan_carlin_suggests_that_at/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

Yes, there's evidence they practiced infant sacrifice, but the details, like frequency, aren't really clear. At least that's what I took from it, but I'm trying to read in an uber!

Edit: now that I'm sitting still I can read that the evidence in the top level reply points towards it being infrequent based on archaeological evidence, at least at that tophet. Increased sacrifice in times of emergency is known to have happened (famously the Romans themselves resorted to some human sacrifice after their loss at Cannae) so it's not unreasonable to imagine it being an emergency type of thing. Whatever the case it definitely made an impression on their neighbors.