You do not need to go far to find a politician ranting about how western culture is under attack, usually either to get reelected or to drum up support for a new military campaign. Politicians love to paint current conflicts as an epic battle similar in its scale to the East vs. West battles of the Greco-Persian wars, the crusades, or the Mongol conquests, leaving one civilization victorious with the other in ruin.

Take the Punic wars as an example (264 BC to 146 BC). The Roman “West” fought the Carthaginian “East” in three major wars, each time limiting the influence of Carthage, leading up to the destruction, and further spreading Rome’s influence, laying the ground work for the future Roman empire.

Except, the war was more a battle between states than cultures. The two were actually more similar than you think. Both were city states that spread their influence to neighboring lands; both were republics that replaced the initial monarchies that founded their cities; and both worshiped polytheistic religions that were continuations of their parent civilizations (Romans worshiped adaptations of Greek Gods while the Carthaginians worshiped the Phoenician Gods of the Levant). In fact, the eastern city of Carthage is geographically to the west of the western city of Rome.

Let’s look deeper into the East vs. West narrative. Carthage was founded by Queen Dido, who, after a power struggle with her brother ending in the death of her husband, left her native city of Tyre in modern day Lebanon, moved west, and founded a new city she called “The New City” for new Tyre, which later became Carthage. Centuries later, after the first Punic War, the Carthaginians moved further west and founded the city of New Carthage or Cartagena in modern day Spain.

Compare this to Rome. After the fall of the western Roman empire 476 CE, the title of Second Rome went east to the capital of the Eastern Roman (or Byzantine) Empire, the city of Constantinople. When the Byzantines fell to the Turks in 1453, the title of third Rome went further East to Moscow.

The eastern city of Carthage kept moving west; the western city of Rome kept moving east. If this is not a metaphor for the true nature of East vs. West, I do not know what is.