Punic Wars - Punic Wars

The three wars fought and won in the 3rd-c and 2nd-c BC by Rome against her only remaining rival for supreme power in the W Mediterranean, the Phoenician (Punic) city, Carthage. The first (264–241 BC) resulted in Rome's acquisition of her first overseas province, Sicily, hitherto a Carthaginian territory. The second war (218–201 BC) saw Carthage surrender to Rome all her remaining overseas possessions, and become a dependent, tribute-paying ally. The third (149–146 BC) ended in the capture and total destruction of Carthage itself.

Punic Wars
First – Mercenary – Second – Third

The Punic Wars were a series of three wars fought between Rome and the Phoenician city of Carthage. At the start of the first Punic War, Carthage was the dominant power of the Mediterranean, with an extensive maritime empire, while Rome was the rapidly ascending power in Italy. By the end of the third war, after the death of many hundreds of thousands of soldiers from both sides, Rome had conquered Carthage's empire and razed the city, becoming in the process 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 (Treaty of Apamea, 188 BC) in the eastern sea, Rome emerged as the dominant Mediterranean power and the most powerful country in the classical world.

Punic Wars

Punic Wars
First – Mercenary – Second – Third

In 264 BC, Carthage was a Phoenician colony on the coast of modern Tunisia.

As soon as Rome had consolidated its control in Italy, it came into conflict with Carthage as Rome attempted to expand its influence into the Mediterranean. Rome and Carthage would fight a series of three Punic Wars between 264 and 146 BC. The Roman victories over Carthage in these wars made Rome the most powerful nation in Europe and the Mediterranean, a 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.

First Punic War (264 to 241 BC)

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 effect of the 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.

First Punic War
Messina - Agrigentum – Lipari Islands – Mylae – Sulci – Tyndaris – Cape Ecnomus – Adys – Tunis – Panormus – Drepana – Lillybaeum - Siege of Drepana - Mt Ercte - 1st Mt Eryx - Raid of Tarentum - 2nd Mt Eryx - Aegates Islands

The First Punic War between Rome and Carthage began as a local conflict in Sicily between Hiero II of Syracuse, and the Mamertines of Messina. With the two local powers now embroiled in a local conflict, local tensions quickly escalated into a full-scale war between Carthage and Rome for the control of Sicily.

The first Punic war was mostly a naval war. Rome responded by drastically expanding its navy (there is some dispute whether or not it did so by copying storm-beached and captured Carthaginian warships): within two months the Romans had a fleet of over 100 warships.

Save for the disastrous defeat at the battle of Tunis in Africa, and the naval engagements of Lipari Islands and Drepana, the first Punic war was mostly an unbroken string of Roman victories.

In 238 BC the mercenary troops of Carthage revolted (see Mercenary War) and Rome took the opportunity to seize the islands of Corsica and Sardinia away from Carthage as well.

Second Punic War (218 to 202 BC)

The Second Punic War (218 BC – 202 BC) is famous for the Carthaginian Hannibal's crossing of the Alps. (Only one war elephant,a sturdy animal nicknamed the 'Syrian', remained when Hannibal reached the Republic.) Hispania, Sicily and Greece were also key theatres, Rome emerging victorious in all three.

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

Carthage spent the following years improving its finances and expanded its colonial empire in Hispania (modern Spain), under the Barcid family, while Rome's attention was mostly concentrated on the Illyrian Wars. However, the Barcid family had not forgotten the defeats of the first Punic war, and its most famous member Hannibal Barca, swore a sacred oath never to be a friend to Rome. In 221 BC Hannibal attacked Saguntum in Spain, a city allied to Rome, beginning the Second Punic War.

After assaulting Saguntum, Hannibal surprised the Romans, by directly invading Italy, leading a large army of mercenaries composed mainly of Gauls, Hispanics, Numidians, and most famously a dozen African war elephants, through the Alps. Lacking siege engines and sufficient numbers to take the city of Rome itself, he had planned to turn the Italian allies against Rome and starve the city out. Not only were they contending with Hannibal in Italy, and his brother in Spain, but Rome had embroiled itself in yet another foreign war, and was fighting the first of its Macedonian wars at the same time.

With Hannibal lacking decisive force from Carthage, and the Roman military spread over three separate theatres of conflict, Hannibal's Italian war carried on inconclusively for sixteen years.

With Carthage now directly threatened, Hannibal returned to Africa to face Scipio, but at the final Battle of Zama in 202 BC the Romans finally defeated Hannibal. Carthage sued for peace, and Rome agreed, first 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. Hannibal took a leadership role in rebuilding Carthage, and succeeded so well that his envious rivals and a vengeful Rome forced him to flee to Asia Minor in 195 BC, where he served several local kings as a military adviser until he committed suicide in 183 BC to avoid his capture by Roman agents.

Third Punic War (149 BC to 146 BC)

The Third Punic War (149 BC - 146 BC) involved an extended siege of Carthage, ending in the city's destruction.

Rome now concentrated its attention on its ongoing Macedonian wars, and into pacifying its newly acquired territory in Hispania.

Carthage, however, was reduced to a single city-state, with no military, under huge financial debt, and dependent on Rome for military protection and arbitration of international matters.

After some fifty years of this condition, Carthage managed to discharge its war indemnity, and considered itself no longer bound by the restrictions of the treaty, although Rome believed otherwise.

This new-found Punic militarism alarmed many Romans, including Cato the Elder who after a voyage to Carthage, ended all his speeches by saying: "Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam."

In 149 BC, in an attempt to pacify Carthage, Rome made a series of escalating demands, ending with the near-impossible demand that the city be demolished and re-built away from the coast, deeper into Africa. The Carthaginians refused this last demand and Rome declared the Third Punic War.