Punic Wars

Punic Wars, name given to the three wars between Rome and Carthage in the 3rd and 2nd centuries bc. The adjective Punic (Latin, Punicus) is derived from Poeni, the name by which the Carthaginians, being of Phoenician descent, were known to the Romans. The contest was for control of the Mediterranean Sea. Rome emerged as the victor from each war.

The First Punic War (264-241 bc) was the outcome of growing political and economic rivalry between the two nations. It was initiated when a band of Campanian mercenary soldiers (Mamertines), besieged in the city of Messana (now Messina), in Sicily, requested aid from both Rome and Carthage against Hiero II of Syracuse. Carthage already controlled part of Sicily, and the Romans, responding to this request with the intention of driving the Carthaginians from the island, declared war. After building their first large fleet, the Romans defeated the Carthaginians at the Battle of Mylae (260 bc) off the north coast of Sicily, but failed to capture the island. In 256 bc a Roman army under Marcus Atilius Regulus established a base in North Africa, but the following year the Carthaginians forced it to withdraw. During the next 13 years the war was largely fought at sea around Sicily. It ended with a naval battle in 241 bc, as a result of which the Romans took control of Sicily, and seized the Carthaginian islands of Sardinia and Corsica in 237 bc.

Hamilcar Barca, who had led the defeated side in 241 bc, devoted the remainder of his life to building up Carthaginian power in Spain to compensate for the loss of Sicily. His son Hannibal became commander of the Carthaginian forces in this region in 221 bc, and in 219 bc attacked and captured Saguntum, a Spanish city allied to Rome. This act led to the Second Punic War (218-201 bc). In the spring of 218 bc Hannibal led a huge force including elephant squadrons through Spain and Gaul and across the Alps to attack the Romans in Italy before they could complete their preparations for war. He secured a firm position in the north of the country. By 216 bc had won two major victories, at Lake Trasimeno and the town of Cannae, and reached southern Italy. In spite of his requests Hannibal received insufficient reinforcements and siege weapons from Carthage until 207 bc, when his brother Hasdrubal left Spain with an army to join him. Hasdrubal crossed the Alps, but in a battle at the Metaurus River, in north Italy, he was killed and his troops defeated. Meanwhile, the Roman general Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus, known as Scipio Africanus the Elder, had totally defeated the Carthaginians in Spain, and in 204 bc he landed an army in North Africa. The Carthaginians recalled Hannibal to Africa to defend them against Scipio. Leading an army of untrained recruits, he was decisively defeated by Scipio at the Battle of Zama in 202 bc. This battle marked the end of Carthage as a great power and the close of the Second Punic War. The Carthaginians were compelled to cede Spain and the islands of the Mediterranean still in their possession, relinquish their navy, and pay an indemnity to Rome.

In the 2nd century bc, however, Carthage continued to be commercially successful and, though only a minor power, a source of irritation to Rome. The Romans were further incited against the Carthagians by the speeches of the censor Cato the Elder, who persistently demanded Delenda est Carthago (“Carthage must be destroyed”). A minor Carthaginian breach of the earlier treaty gave the Romans a pretext for starting the Third Punic War (149-146 bc). Under Scipio the Younger, they captured the city of Carthage, razed it to the ground, and sold the surviving inhabitants into slavery.