Announcing the sack of a city

[Nathan Ross]

Is the Homeric epithete "sacker of cities" unambigious? There must be more examples.

I think perhaps the terminology here is confusing. I have always considered 'sack' to mean plunder, rob, rape etc - but what you're talking about appears to be a total destruction. For a victorious army to plunder ('sack') a captured city appears to have been quite normal in ancient warfare, and as Paul says there may have been conventions governing when it was allowed or otherwise. Consider the Roman force which captured Jerusalem for their ally Herod in c.35bc - they went on a rampage of plunder and murder until Herod himself paid them off from his treasury.

Totally destroying or razing a city - as in the case of Carthage etc - was rather different, and a much more serious (not to mention time consuming!) undertaking. It's not surprising it happened so rarely.

- Nathan