From The Punic Herald (Archives, 309 BC):

Carthage, Reign of Bomilcar, Twenty-First Year – 

Speaking today on the Byrsa Hill, High Priest Ben-Marduk of the Moloch Cult joined Presiding Shofete of the High Council Ben-Matho in a public declaration that the annual Mass Offering of the First-Born to Moloch is a boon to the daughters of Carthage, disburdening them of a dreadful onus and making possible their self-development through cosmetic beautification and the cultivation of socially elevating cultural arts such as the Sacred Dances of Astarte and the Songs of Ashtoreth.  Ben-Matho remarked that the founder of Our Fair City, Dido-Elissa of Tyre, famously disdained marriage to the foreigner Aeneas, a refugee from Troy, affirming the independence of women, their freedom from childbirth and childrearing, and thereby distinguishing them from the much put-upon women of the Latin primitives who haughtily challenge Carthaginian supremacy in the far West of the Middle Sea.  The fondness of the Roman paterfamilias for large numbers of children indicates the effeminacy of the Roman nation, Ben-Matho said.  He added that Roman disdain for the Holy Practice of “Passing the First-Born Through the Fire” indicates religious backwardness and a general anti-social attitude.  “In sustaining the liberating Rites of Moloch, Most Exalted Deity of Our Fair City,” Ben-Matho said, “we insure forever the supremacy of Carthage over the sentimental, child-loving savages of Italy, Iberia, and the Island of Sicily.”  Asked by reporters to respond to Ben-Marduk and Ben-Matho, King Bomilcar affirmed his solidarity with correct opinion and vowed that his concubines would religiously consign any of his First-Born to the Great Lord Moloch.