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v • d • e Punic Wars
First – Mercenary – Second – Third

The Punic Wars were a series of three wars fought between Rome and Carthage between 264 and 146 BC. They are known as the Punic Wars because the Latin term for Carthaginian was Punici (older Poenici, from their Phoenician ancestry).

The main cause of the Punic Wars was the clash of interests between the existing Carthaginian Empire and the expanding Roman Republic. The Romans were initially interested in expansion via Sicily, part of which lay under Carthaginian control. At the start of the first Punic War, Carthage was the dominant power of the Western Mediterranean, with an extensive maritime empire, while Rome was the rapidly ascending power in Italy. By the end of the third war, after more than a hundred years and the deaths of many hundreds of thousands of soldiers from both sides, Rome had conquered Carthage's empire and razed the city, becoming the most powerful state of the Western Mediterranean. With the end of the Macedonian wars — which ran concurrently with the Punic wars — and the defeat of the Seleucid Emperor Antiochus III the Great in the Roman-Syrian War (Treaty of Apamea, 188 BC) in the eastern sea, Rome emerged as the dominant Mediterranean power and the most powerful city in the classical world.

This was a turning point that meant that the civilization of the ancient Mediterranean would pass to the modern world via Europe instead of Africa. The Roman victories over Carthage in these wars gave Rome a preeminent status it would retain until the division of the Roman Empire into the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire by Diocletian in 286 AD.

Contents 1 Background 2 First Punic War (264 to 241 BC) 2.1 Beginning 2.2 The war at sea 2.3 Aftermath 3 Second Punic War (218 BC to 201 BC) 3.1 Hannibal 3.2 Hasdrubal's campaign to reinforce Hannibal 3.3 End of the war 4 Third Punic War (149 BC to 146 BC) 5 References 6 See also 7 External links

In 264 BC, Carthage was a large port city located on the coast of modern Tunisia. Founded by the Phoenicians in the middle of the 9th century BC, it was a powerful city-state with a large and lucrative commercial empire. Of the great city-states in the western Mediterranean, only Rome rivaled it in power, wealth, and population. While Carthage's navy was the largest in the ancient world at the time, it did not maintain a large, permanent, standing army. Instead, it relied on mercenaries, hired with its considerable wealth, to fight its wars. [1] However, most of the officers who commanded the armies were Carthaginian citizens. The Carthaginians were famed for their abilities as sailors, and unlike their armies, many Carthaginians from the lower classes served in their navy, which provided them with a stable income and career.

In 264 BC the Roman Republic had gained control of the Italian peninsula south of the Po river. Unlike Carthage, Rome had large standing armies made up almost entirely of Roman citizens. The lower class, or plebians, usually served as the foot-soldiers in Roman legions, while the upper class, or patricians, served as the commanding officers. On the other hand, at the start of the First Punic War the Romans had no standing navy, and were thus at a disadvantage until they began to construct their own large fleets during the war.

Main article: First Punic War

The First Punic War (264 BC - 241 BC) was fought partly on land in Sicily and Africa, but was also a naval war to a large extent. The struggle was costly to both powers, but after more than 20 years of war, Rome emerged victorious, at last conquering the island of Sicily and forcing the defeated Carthage to pay a massive tribute. The effect of the long war destabilized Carthage so much that Rome was able to seize Sardinia and Corsica a few years later when Carthage was plunged into the Mercenary War.

v • d • e First Punic War
Messana – Agrigentum – Lipari Islands – Mylae – Sulci – Tyndaris – Cape Ecnomus – Adys – Tunis – Panormus – 1st Drepana – Lillybaeum – 2nd Drepana – Mt Ercte – 1st Mt Eryx - 2nd Mt Eryx – Aegates Islands

The war began as a local conflict in Sicily between Hiero II of Syracuse, and the Mamertines of Messina. The Mamertines had the bad judgment to enlist the aid of the Carthaginian navy, and then betray the Carthaginians by entreating the Roman Senate for aid against Carthage. The Romans sent a garrison to secure Messina, and the outraged Carthaginians then lent aid to Syracuse. With the two powers now embroiled in a local conflict, tensions quickly escalated into a full-scale war between Carthage and Rome for the control of Sicily.

After a sound defeat at the Battle of Agrigentum in 261 BC, the Carthaginian leadership resolved to avoid further direct land-based engagements with the powerful Roman legions, and concentrated on the sea, where they believed they had an advantage.

Initially, the experienced Carthaginian navy prevailed against the fledgling Roman Navy in the Battle of the Lipari Islands in 260 BC. Rome responded by drastically expanding its navy in a very short time. Within two months the Romans had a fleet of over 100 warships. Because they knew that they could not outmaneuver the Carthaginians in the traditional tactics of ramming and sinking enemy ships, the Romans added an "assault bridge" to Roman ships, known as a corvus. This bridge would latch onto enemy vessels, bring them to a standstill. Then shipboard Roman legionaries were able to board and capture Carthaginian ships through hand-to-hand fighting, a skill that the Romans were more comfortable with. This innovative Roman tactic reduced the Carthaginian navy's advantage in ship-to-ship engagements, and allowed Rome's superior infantry to be brought to bear in naval conflicts. However, the corvus was also cumbersome and dangerous, and was eventually phased out as the Roman navy became more experienced and tactically proficient.

Save for the disastrous defeat at the Battle of Tunis in Africa, and two naval engagements, the First Punic War was nearly an unbroken string of Roman victories. In 241 BC, Carthage signed a peace treaty ceding to Rome total control of Sicily.

At war's end, Rome's navies were powerful enough to prevent the amphibious invasion of Italy, control the important and rich sea trade routes, and invade other shores.

In 238 BC the mercenary troops of Carthage revolted (see Mercenary War) and Rome took the opportunity to take the islands of Corsica and Sardinia from Carthage as well. From that point on, the Romans effectively controlled the Mediterranean, referring to it as "Mare Nostrum" ("our sea").

Carthage spent the years following the First Punic War improving its finances and expanding its colonial empire in Hispania (the Iberian Peninsula, modern Spain and Portugal), under the Barcid family. Rome's attention was mostly concentrated on the Illyrian Wars. In 219 BC Hannibal, the son of Hamilcar Barca, attacked Saguntum in Hispania, a city allied to Rome, beginning the Second Punic War.

Main article: Second Punic War

The Second Punic War (218 BC – 201 BC) is most remembered for the Carthaginian Hannibal's crossing of the Alps. He and his army invaded Italy from the north and resoundingly defeated the Roman army in several battles, but never achieved the ultimate goal of causing a political break between Rome and its allies.

While fighting Hannibal in Italy, Spain and Sicily, Rome also simultaneously fought in Greece against Macedon in the First Macedonian War. Eventually, the war was taken to Africa, where Carthage was defeated at the Battle of Zama by Scipio Africanus. The end of the war saw Carthage's control reduced to only the city itself.

v • d • e Second Punic War

Saguntum – Lilybaeum – Rhone – Ticinus – Trebia – Cissa – Lake Trasimene – Ebro River – Ager Falernus – Geronium – Cannae – 1st Nola – Dertosa – 2nd Nola – Cornus – 3rd Nola – Beneventum – 1st Tarentum – 1st Capua – Silarus – 1st Herdonia – Syracuse – Upper Baetis – 2nd Capua – 2nd Herdonia – Numistro – Asculum – 2nd Tarentum – Baecula – Grumentum – Metaurus – Ilipa – Crotona – Utica – Great Plains – Cirta – Po Valley – Zama

There were three military theaters in this war: Italy, where Hannibal defeated the Roman legions repeatedly; Spain, where Hasdrubal, a younger brother of Hannibal, defended the Carthaginian colonial cities with mixed success until eventually retreating into Italy; and Sicily where the Romans held military supremacy.

Hannibal was a master strategist who knew that the Roman cavalry was, as a rule, weak and vulnerable. He therefore enlisted superior cavalry into his armies, with devastating effect on the Roman legions.

After assaulting Saguntum, Hannibal surprised the Romans in 218 BC by directly invading Italy. He led a large army of mercenaries composed mainly of Gauls, Hispanics, Numidians, and, most famously, two dozen African war elephants, through the Alps. This move had a double edged effect. Although Hannibal surprised the Romans and thoroughly beat them on the battlefields of Italy, he lost his only siege engines and elephants to the cold temperatures and icy mountain paths. In the end it allowed him to defeat the Romans in the field, but not in the strategically crucial city of Rome itself, thus making him unable to draw the war to a decisive close.

Hannibal defeated the Roman legions in several major engagements, including the Battle of the Trebia, the Battle of Lake Trasimene and most famously at the Battle of Cannae, but his long-term strategy failed. Lacking siege engines and sufficient manpower to take the city of Rome itself, he had planned to turn the Italian allies against Rome and starve the city out through a siege. However, with the exception of a few of the southern city-states, the majority of the Roman allies remained loyal and continued to fight alongside Rome, despite Hannibal's near-invincible army devastating the Italian countryside. Rome also exhibited an impressive ability to draft army after army of conscripts after each crushing defeat by Hannibal, allowing them to recover from the defeats at Cannae and elsewhere and keep Hannibal cut off from aid.

More importantly, Hannibal never successfully received any significant reinforcements from Carthage. Despite his many pleas, Carthage only ever sent reinforcements successfully to Spain. This lack of reinforcements prevented Hannibal from decisively ending the conflict by conquering Rome through force of arms.

The Roman army under Quintus Fabius Maximus intentionally deprived Hannibal of open battle, while making it difficult for Hannibal to forage for supplies. Nevertheless, Rome was also incapable of bringing the conflict in the Italian theatre to a decisive close. Not only were they contending with Hannibal in Italy, and his brother Hasdrubal in Spain, but Rome had embroiled itself in yet another foreign war, the first of its Macedonian wars against Carthage's ally Philip V, at the same time.

Through Hannibal's inability to take strategically important Italian cities, the general loyalty Italian allies showed to Rome, and Rome's own inability to counter Hannibal as a master general, Hannibal's campaign continued in Italy inconclusively for sixteen years.

In Spain, a young Roman commander, Publius Cornelius Scipio (later to be given the agnomen Africanus because of his feats during this war), eventually defeated the Carthaginian forces under Hasdrubal. Abandoning Hispania, Hasdrubal moved to bring his mercenary army into Italy to reinforce Hannibal.

Hasdrubal again brought a Carthaginian army across the Alps into Italy, as his brother did before him, making his way into the Po valley. The spectre of another huge Carthaginian army in Italy was terrifying, and the Romans knew they needed to cut off Hasdrubal's reinforcements at any cost. In the Battle of the Metaurus River in 207 BC, the Roman commander Gaius Claudius Nero had about 700 of his best soldiers distract Hasdrubal while he himself rounded the river to strike the rear flank of Hasdrubal's army. Hasdrubal, realizing that he was doomed, threw himself headlong into the Roman forces to be killed rather than captured. Hasdrubal's head was thrown by the triumphant Romans into Hannibal's camp, whereupon Hannibal and his army retreated into the mountains for a short time.

Meanwhile in Hispania, Scipio captured the local Carthaginian cities and made alliances with local rulers. With Hispania essentially pacified, Scipio then turned to invade Africa itself.

With Carthage now directly threatened, in 203 BC Hannibal returned to Africa to face Scipio. At the final Battle of Zama in 202 BC the Romans at last defeated Hannibal in open battle. Carthage sued for peace, and Rome agreed, but only after imposing harsh terms, stripping Carthage of its foreign colonies, forcing it to pay a huge indemnity, and forbidding it to own either an army or a significant navy again.

Main article: Third Punic War

The Third Punic War (149 BC - 146 BC) involved an extended siege of Carthage, ending in the city's thorough destruction. The resurgence of the struggle can be explained by growing anti-Roman agitations in Hispania and Greece, and the visible improvement of Carthaginian wealth and martial power in the fifty years since the Second War.

With no military, Carthage suffered raids from its neighbour Numidia. Under the terms of the treaty with Rome, such disputes were arbitrated by the Roman Senate. Because Numidia was a favored client state of Rome, Roman rulings were slanted heavily to favor the Numidians. After some fifty years of this condition, Carthage had managed to discharge its war indemnity to Rome, and considered itself no longer bound by the restrictions of the treaty, although Rome believed otherwise. Carthage mustered an army to repel Numidian forces. It immediately lost the war with Numidia, placing itself in debt yet again, this time to Numidia.

This new-found Punic militarism alarmed many Romans, including Cato the Elder who after a voyage to Carthage, ended all his speeches, no matter what the topic, by saying: "Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam." - "Furthermore, I think that Carthage must be destroyed".

In 149 BC, in an attempt to draw Carthage into open conflict, Rome made a series of escalating demands, one being the surrender of three hundred children of the nobility as hostages, and finally ending with the near-impossible demand that the city be demolished and rebuilt away from the coast, deeper into Africa. When the Carthaginians refused this last demand, Rome declared the Third Punic War. Having previously relied on mercenaries to fight their wars for them, the Carthaginians were now forced into a more active role in the defense of their city. They made thousands of makeshift weapons in a short amount of time, even using women's hair for catapult strings, and were able to hold off an initial Roman attack. A second offensive under the command of Scipio Aemilianus resulted in a three-year siege before he breached the walls, sacked the city, and systematically burned Carthage to the ground.

• Treaties between Rome and Carthage

• Punic Wars Timeline
• Holst, Sanford "War and Peace" this academic paper shows the descent into Punic Wars, and addresses division of power between Europe and Africa