Carthage Imagined. From Giovanni Pastrone’s Cabiria (1914) to Game of Thrones (2012)

Abstract

<jats:p>The purpose of this paper is to present the historiophotic image of Carthage and Carthaginians and also to demonstrate what made-up stories take from the image of antiquity present in our collective consciousness, what motifs were an inspiration for the creators of both the film and the TV series (hictorical motifs but also architecture – very important for the background, e.g. Punic temple of Moloch in Cabiria or frequent Egyptian borrowings – and 19th century paintings by J.M.W. Turner), how ancient code was used to discuss politics of the day (in Cabiria, the fights between pacifists and nationalists calling for the conquest of Africa), whether D’Annunzianism had any impact on the film and how Cabiria fits into the historical-Roman trend. Antiquity presented and imagined as above were analysed on two levels – philological and archaeological (including architectural elements building up urban structures, decorative sculptures, interior decoration, everyday objects and clothing).</jats:p>