the decline of the carthaginian empire depicts the crushing penalty rome inflicted on the carthaginianse architecture is elegant but the messy dockside suggests the end of a defeated imperial power. the women of vanquished carthage are bidding farewell to their men as they sail towards rome, human spoils of war bound for slavery or death. in 1818, turner was 43. in the twenty years that britain had been at war, he had become a public figure, his reputation based on art and enterprise. the new classes made wealthy by the industrial revolution were eager to buy his works. and he was favored with patronage from landed gentry like walter fawkes, who invited him to stay at his yorkshire estate. one morning at breakfast fawkes asked him to make a drawing that would convey the huge size of a man-of-war. fawkes' grand niece recorded how it was done. (reader) "he began by pouring wet paint onto the paper till it was saturated, he tore, he scratched, he scrubbed at it in a kind of frenzy and the whole thing was chaos-- but gradually and as if by magic the lovely ship, with all its exquisite minut