Now you got me thinking... The oldest genocide I can think of is that of indigenous populations in the event of the colonization of the Americas, so the title goes to Portugal and Spain.
So I did some research and of course the Romans did it first in Carthage, so I guess it still counts as the West anyways, even though it's pre-Christian Rome. Earlier Middle East genocides seemed to spare women and children and were more about forced assimilation than ethnical cleansing.
Now you got me thinking... The oldest genocide I can think of is that of indigenous populations in the event of the colonization of the Americas, so the title goes to Portugal and Spain.
So I did some research and of course the Romans did it first in Carthage, so I guess it still counts as the West anyways, even though it's pre-Christian Rome. Earlier Middle East genocides seemed to spare women and children and were more about forced assimilation than ethnical cleansing.