Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for November 12, 2011

Modern civilization would be so much different if Hannibal had captured Rome. Who knows what language we’d be speaking now? My guess is whatever Attila the Hun spoke.

Has pig had his hearing checked lately?

Oh, Pig! Sometimes I think you deliberately play even dumber than you really are….

Pig’s panic could be justified, since a book on the Punic Wars could be seen as Hannibal’s Lecture.

mjm313: groan

I second that, Doc.

But….how many bags did take to sack Rome?

You know, if it were the PUN-nic wars I’d ride into battle….

(Uh oh. I can’t use a pen here — is the keyboard still mightier than the sword?)

I hope that is only one volume of many, considering there were 3 wars to fall under that category. I must also give a shout out to Scipio

Did the Punics wear Tunics?

Forget all that ancient history…. What if the Native Americans had driven the invaders back into the sea?

pig should bye a brain and some ears and he’d be ok

What if the South had won the Civil War? Ugh… Don’t EVEN want to think about it…

Alternate-history fantasies of the past are a worthwhile use of our time only if they can help us improve our future.

That pig – - – he’s such a big ham . . . ☻

I’ll third that groan! He phoned this one in.

I agree with TheTrustedMechanic and would like to point out that Richard S. Russell said nothing about the strip, so by his own logic, that also was not a comment (this wouldn’t be, either, but I don’t agree with his “non-comment”)

I agree with Thetrustedmechanic. This is not the proper forum to post harsh comments about other posters. Please save all your critcism for Stephan

Guard Duck would never want a puny war.

Woahhhhh!

xxx

After reading the comments, I was going to respond to RSR’s rudeness as well, but you said it perfectly and I agree 100%!

As I was told in Kindergarten, “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.”

Well: looks like Pig got his wish: a small war here amid the comments, over nothing much.

My new goal is to be the last to post. And so I don’t get lambasted for not commenting on the strip, I too shall look up Punic Wars!

True dat about my Viking ancestors but when the English and the French and the Spanish and the Dutch showed up, they were packing and they came in numbers. My other ancestors (Cherokee) were pretty much guaranteed to be toast.

I don’t know if Atilla the Hun’s calvary would’ve been any better than Hannibal’s Spanish calvary… had events played out differently, had Carthage made an annual trek across the Alps a right of passage for their european clavary members ha ha.

p.s. Nabuk, it would be interesting if Rome became a more xenophobic nation, and maybe even a little bit more like Sparta, i.e. militarily strong, but not expansionist/trying to spread worldwide Roman culture. Both Rome and later Byzantium fell as a result, in some part, of not being xenophobic right?

Ancient history can be so dependable. You can get a lot of mileage out of the Battle of Marathon.

And of course…“GOTP delenda est…”

Dude, I did get the first comment regarding the strip. And you didn’t say anything at all about the strip. And FYI, I had a great day yesterday. Getting the first comment was just a small perk. The new PBS comes up at about 10:15 p.m. where I’m at.

I wonder what time zone I should be aiming for in order to get the last post?

where is comiccritic5744 when you need her…

Just another panic pun-day…÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷All I know about Hannibal is that he always loved it when a plan came together.(Did I make you howling mad?)

But the Native Americans inflicted TWO lethal weapons on the Europeans: tobacco and syphilis (it only appeared in Europe after 1492).

Do I get to post the last post?

Snoopy_Fan: Touche!

@Night-Gaunt: I agree with you, so, if I m LAST to comment, I will comment on how the world would be different if the Carthigeneans had won the war: They spoke a Semitic language – the name “Carthage” is a curruption of the Semitic words “Kiryat Hadash” – “New City,” which is the same as in modern Hebrew. I think that Jews would not have been as persecuted had Hannibal won. The Romans would not have been able to conquer Judaea and therefore Jesus would not have been crucified, since that was a Roman form of capital punishment. A form of Judaism may have spread through the Mediterranean, but like Christianity, would have not been like Judaism; however it would have borrowed more from Carthaginean structures rather than Roman structures. The Carthagineans would not have desired to conquer the parts of Europe that the Romans conquered, and therefore the Huns would not have pushed the Germanic tribes into their empire. So, then there may not have been the Dark Ages. Maybe the Carthageneans would have discovered the New World earlier, but as Night-Gaunt says, they would have met the Native Americans on equal technological terms and would have been unable to conquer them.

So the Anglo-Saxons may not have conquered England; the Iberians with their Carthaginean masters would not have made colonies in the Americas; there would be no Reformation or English to make colonies in North America and, therefore no United States and maybe no GoComics :-(

As the unintentionally offensive comment has been removed, anyone who tries to read the comments and trace the conversation will be very confused.