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ROME: THE PUNIC WARS
Hooker, Richard. “The Punic Wars.” 1998. Web. August 1, 2004.
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/ROME/PUNICWARS.HTM
Carthage
The greatest naval power of the Mediterranean in the third century BCE was the North African
city of Carthage near modern day Tunis. The Carthaginians were orginally Phoenicians [eastern
coast of the Mediterranean] and Carthage was a colony founded by the Phoenician capital city of
Tyre in the ninth century BCE; the word "Carthage" means, in Phoenician, "the New City." The
Phoenicians, however, were conquered by the Assyrians in the sixth century BCE, and then
conquered by the Persians; an independent Phoenician state would never again appear in the
Middle East. Carthage, however, remained; it was no longer a colony, but a fully functioning
independent state. While the Romans were steadily increasing their control over the Italian
peninsula, the Carthaginians were extending their empire over most of North Africa. By the time
that Rome controlled all of the Italian peninsula, Carthage already controlled the North African
coast from western Libya to the Strait of Gibraltar, and ruled over most of southern Spain, and the
island of Corsicas and Sardinia as well. Carthage was a formidable power; it controlled almost all
the commercial trade in the Mediterranean, had subjected vast numbers of people, all of whom
sent soldiers and supplies, and amassed tremendous wealth from gold and silver mines in Spain.
These two mighty empires came into contact in the middle of the third century BCE when Rome's
power had reached the southern tip of Italy. The two peoples had been in sporadic contact before,
but neither side felt threatened by the other. The Romans were perfectly aware of the
Carthaginian heritage: they called them by their old name, Phoenicians. In Latin, the word is
Poeni, which gives us the name for the wars between the two states, the Punic Wars. These
conflicts, so disastrous for Carthage, were inevitable. Between Carthage and Italy lay the huge
island of Sicily; Carthage controlled the western half of Sicily, but the southern tip of the Italian
peninsula put the Romans within throwing distance of the island. When the city of Messana [on
Sicily] revolted against the Carthaginians, the Romans intervened, and the first Punic War
erupted.
The First Punic War: 264-241 BCE
The First Punic War broke out in 264 BCE; it was concentrated entirely on the island of Sicily.
Rome beseiged many of the Carthaginian cities on Sicily, and when Carthage attempted to raise
the seige with its navy, the Romans utterly destroyed that navy. For the first time since the rise of
the Carthaginian empire, they had lost power over the sea.
The war ended with no particular side winning over the other. In 241 BCE, the Carthaginians and
Romans signed a treaty in which Carthage had to give up Sicily, which it didn't miss, and to pay
an indemnity [a fine] to pay for the war, which it could well afford. But Carthage soon faced
rebellion among its mercenary troops and Rome, in 238 BCE, took advantage of the confusion by
seizing the island of Corsica. The Romans greatly feared the Carthaginians and wanted to build as
large a buffer zone as possible between them and the Carthaginians. By gaining Sicily, the
Romans had expelled the Carthaginians from their back yard; they now wanted them out of their
front yard, that is, the islands of Corsica and Sardinia west of the Italian peninsula.
The Carthaginians were furious at this action; even Roman historians believed it was a rash and
unethical act. The Carthaginians began to shore up their presence in Europe. They sent first the
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general Hamilcar and then his son-in-law, Hasdrubal, to Spain to build colonies and an army.
Both Hamilcar and Hasdrubal made allies among the native Iberians, and their armies, recruited
from Iberians, grew ominous as Carthaginian power and influence crept up the Iberian peninsula.
The Second Punic War: 218-202 BCE
By 218 BCE, Carthage had built a mighty empire in Spain and grown wealthy and powerful as a
result. Growing increasingly anxious, the Romans had imposed a treaty on Carthage not to
expand their empire past the Ebro River in Spain. However, when a small city in Spain,
Saguntum, approached Rome asking for Roman friendship and alliance, the Romans couldn't
resist having a friendly ally right in the heart of the Carthaginian Iberian empire.
A few years previously, however, in 221 BCE, a young man, only twenty-five years old, had
assumed command over Carthaginian Spain: Hannibal. At first, Hannibal gave the Saguntines a
wide berth, wishing to avoid coming into conflict with Rome. But the Saguntines were flush with
confidence in their new alliance, and began playing politics with other Spanish cities. Hannibal,
despite direct threats from Rome, attacked Saguntum and conquered it.
The Romans attempted to solve the problem with diplomacy, demanding that Carthage dismiss
Hannibal and send him to Rome. When Carthage refused, the second Punic War began in 218
BCE. Rome, however, was facing a formidable opponent; in the years following the first Punic
War, Carthage had created a powerful empire in Spain with a terrifyingly large army. Hannibal
marched that army across Europe and, in September of 218, he crossed the Alps with his army
and entered Italy on a war of invasion. Although his army was tired, he literally smashed the
Roman armies he encountered in northern Italy. These spectacular victories brought a horde of
Gauls from the north to help him, fifty thousand or more; his victory over Rome, as he saw it,
would be guaranteed by convincing Roman allies and subject cities to join Carthage.
The Romans knew that they couldn't beat Hannibal in open warfare. Desperate, they asked
Quintus Fabius Maximus to become absolute dictator1 of Rome. Fabius determined to avoid open
warfare at any cost and simply harass the Carthaginian army until they were weak enough to be
engaged with openly. But when Hannibal marched into Cannae and started decimating the
countryside in 216 BCE, Fabius sent an army of eighty thousand soldiers against him. This army
was completely wiped out, the largest defeat Rome ever suffered. Roman allies in the south of
Italy literally ran to Hannibal's side; the whole of Sicily allied itself with the Carthaginians. In
addition, the king of Macedon, Philip V, who controlled most of the mainland of Greece, allied
himself with Hannibal and began his own war against Roman possessions in 215 BCE.
The situation was nearly hopeless for the Romans. Fabius had been chastened by his defeat and
absolutely refused to go against Hannibal, whose army moved around the Italian countryside
absolutely unopposed. Hannibal, however, was weak in numbers and in equipment. He didn't
have enough soldiers to lay seige to cities such as Rome, and he didn't have either the men or
equipment to storm those cities by force. All he could do was roam the countryside and lay waste
to it.
The Romans, however, decided to fight the war through the back door. They knew that Hannibal
was dependent on Spain for future supplies and men, so they appointed a young, strategically
1
A temporary office under the Roman Republic, used only in times of extreme emergency. From the Latin
dictare, to speak. Thus a dictator’s word is, literally, law. Initially this did not have a negative sense (much
like the Greek office of tyrant) but over time it developed the negative sense the modern usage carries.
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brilliant man as proconsul2 and handed him the imperium3 over Spain. This move was
unconstituional, for this young man had never served as consul.4 His name: Publius Cornelius
Scipio (237-183 BCE). Scipio, who would later be called Scipio Africanus for his victory over
Carthage (in Africa), soon conquered all of Spain. Hannibal was now left high and dry in Italy.
Scipio then crossed into Africa in 204 BCE and took the war to the walls of Carthage itself. This
forced the Carthaginians to sue for peace with Rome; part of the treaty demanded that Hannibal
leave the Italian peninsula. Hannibal was one of the great strategic generals in history; all during
his war with Rome he never once lost a battle. Now, however, he was forced to retreat; he had,
despite winning every battle, lost the war. When he returned to Carthage, the Carthaginians took
heart and rose up against Rome in one last attempt in 202 BCE. At Zama in northern Africa,
Hannibal, fighting against Scipio and his army, met his first defeat. Rome reduced Carthage to a
dependent state; Rome now controlled the whole of the western Mediterranean including northern
Africa.
This was the defining historical experience of the Romans. They had faced certain defeat with
toughness and determination and had won against overwhelming odds. For the rest of Roman
history, the character of being Roman would be distilled in the histories of this desperate war
against Carthage. The Second Punic War turned Rome from a regional power into an
international empire: it had gained much of northern Africa, Spain, and the major islands in the
western Mediterranean. Because Philip V of Macedon had allied himself with Hannibal and
started his own war of conquest, the second Punic War forced Rome to turn east in wars of
conquest against first Philip and then other Hellenistic kingdoms. The end result of the second
Punic War, in the end, was the domination of the known world by Rome.
The Third Punic War: 149-146 BCE
In the years intervening, Rome undertook the conquest of the Hellenistic empires to the east. In
the west, Rome brutally subjugated the Iberian people who had been so vital to Roman success in
the second Punic War. However, they were especially angry at the Carthaginians who had almost
destroyed them. The great statesman of Rome, Cato, is reported by the historians as ending all his
speeches, no matter what their subject, with the statement, "I also think that Carthage should be
destroyed."5 Carthage had, through the first half of the second century BCE, recovered much of
its prosperity through its commercial activities, although it had not gained back much power. The
Romans, deeply suspicious of a reviving Carthage, demanded that the Carthaginians abandon
their city and move inland into North Africa. The Carthaginians, who were a commercial people
that depended on sea trade, refused. The Roman Senate declared war, and Rome attacked the city
itself. After a seige, the Romans stormed the town and the army went from house to house
slaughtering the inhabitants in what is perhaps the greatest systematic execution of noncombatants before World War II. Carthaginians who weren't killed were sold into slavery. The
harbor and the city was demolished, and all the surrounding countryside was sown with salt in
order to render it uninhabitable.
2
Governor and chief officer of a Roman province.
The power to command the armed forces, eventually manipulated by the time of Julius Caesar and his
successors into imperial (hence “emperor”) power.
4
One of two annually elected leaders of Rome; the consulship was the highest office in the Republic.
According to the Roman constitution, the power of the imperium could not be held by someone who had
not yet held the office of consul.
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Carthago delenda est.
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