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Punic War

 

n.
Any of the three wars (264-241, 218-201, and 149-146 B.C.) fought between Rome and Carthage, resulting ultimately in the destruction of Carthage and the gain by the Romans of its territory in Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, Africa, and Spain.


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Three wars (264 – 241 BC, 218 – 201, 149 – 146) between Rome and Carthage. The first concerned control of Sicily and of the sea lanes in the western Mediterranean; it ended with Rome victorious but with great loss of ships and men on both sides. In 218 Hannibal attacked Roman territory, starting from Spain and marching overland into Italy with troops and elephants. After an initial Carthaginian victory, Fabius Maximus Cunctator harassed him wherever he went without offering battle. Abandoning this tactic resulted in a major Roman loss at the Battle of Cannae (216); that defeat drew the Romans together and, though worn down, they managed to rally, eventually defeating Hannibal and driving him out of Italy (203). The Third Punic War was essentially the siege of Carthage; it led to the destruction of Carthage, the enslavement of its people, and Roman hegemony in the western Mediterranean. The Carthaginian territory became the Roman province of Africa.

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Punic wars (264-241, 218-201, 149-146 bc), three wars between Rome and Carthage, so-called from the Latin for Carthaginian, which effectively decided the struggle for mastery of the Mediterranean world. Before the first war, Rome was still a purely Italian power, not even in control of northern Italy; after the last, her writ effectively ran from the Levant to Spain and from the Alps to Tunisia.

The first war was sparked by an incident involving Messina in Sicily, then held by Campanian mercenaries, calling themselves the ‘Mamertini’ or ‘Men of Mamers’, their equivalent of Mars. Threatened by King Hiero of Syracuse these first asked Carthage for help, but then turned to Rome. After some hesitation, the Romans accepted their appeal, and when the Carthaginians and Hiero joined forces to attack them, the Roman Consul Appius Claudius Caudex first issued an ultimatum and, when this was rejected, daringly crossed the straits and lifted the siege.

Behind this action probably lay Roman fears, however exaggerated, of a Carthaginian presence in eastern Sicily, particularly so soon after their conquest of southern Italy, while neither Carthage nor Hiero were prepared to allow Roman interference in Sicily. The situation was complicated by the fact that Rome and Carthage had hitherto been on friendly terms, whereas Syracuse and Carthage had been enemies for centuries. But there is no reason to doubt that Rome saw Carthage as the principal danger from the first, and neither Hiero nor Carthage can be entirely absolved of blame for what happened.

The Punic wars, including Hannibal's campaigns (Click to enlarge)
The Punic wars, including Hannibal's campaigns
(Click to enlarge)


Rome first concentrated mainly on Syracuse, but once Hiero had made his peace in 263, the war became essentially a conflict between Rome and Carthage for control of the rest of Sicily. Mostly fought out in and around the island, apart from a brief Roman foray to Africa, it was the greatest naval war in ancient history, and at least in numbers of men and ships one of the greatest ever fought. Indeed, it was chiefly remarkable for the way in which Rome, which began the war with virtually no navy, consistently outbuilt and outfought what was then the most powerful naval state in the Mediterranean. Beginning with Mylae (Milazzo) in 260, which saw the first use of the corvus, Rome not only won a series of victories—Sulci (258), Tyndaris (257), Ecnomus, and Cape Hermaia (255) —but used her new-found sea power to strike at the enemy homeland in 256/5.

After defeat in Africa, overconfidence and lack of experience led to disasters through bad weather in 255, 253, and 249, and in the last year Carthage won her sole naval victory at Drepana. But by that time Carthaginian forces had been confined to the west of Sicily, where only Eryx (Monte San Giuliano), Drepana (Trapani), and Lilybaeum (Marsala), the last two under siege, remained in their hands. Thereafter there was stalemate in Sicily, where Hamilcar commanded Carthaginian forces in the north-west, until a Carthaginian fleet bringing reinforcements and supplies was heavily defeated off the Aegates Islands in 241, and Carthage made peace. She had lost the war because she lacked the resources, particularly in manpower, to outslog Rome, and had failed even to use her sea power to prevent the Romans landing in Sicily and Africa, let alone to carry the war to Italy.

The second war may have been deliberately engineered by Hamilcar and his son as a war of revenge, and clearly owed much to the legacy of bitterness left by the first, particularly Carthaginian anger at the way Rome seized Sardinia when Carthage, weakened by war with her mutinous mercenaries, was in no position to intervene. Hannibal, who had succeeded to his father's command in Spain eight years after the latter's death, may also have inherited his father's belief that Rome could only be defeated in Italy. At all events, when warned by Rome not to attack Saguntum in the autumn of 220, Hannibal, who claimed that the town had been guilty of aggression against Carthage's allies in the area, showed no hesitation. He took it in 219, and then seized the initiative by his audacious march to Italy, and the devastating victories at the Trebbia, Lake Trasimene, and Cannae. Thereafter much of southern Italy, including the two largest cities after Rome—Capua and Tarentum—came over to him, and Syracuse and Macedonia also joined what appeared to be the winning side.

But after Cannae, Rome returned to the strategy, first introduced by Fabius Maximus, of refusing to fight Hannibal in the field while aggressively defending strategic bases such as Nola and Beneventum, denying him a seaport in Campania, and retaking places when he was elsewhere. The turning point came in 212-211 when first Syracuse and then Capua fell. Hannibal was still dangerous in the field, as he demonstrated in the two battles of Herdonea (if there were two) in 212 and 210, and the strain on the loyalty of Rome's allies was amply demonstrated by the refusal of twelve of the 30 Latin colonies to supply their quotas of men in 209. But Hannibal only once received any reinforcements by sea, in 215, and when his brother, Hasdrubal, arrived in northern Italy overland in 207, he was defeated and killed at the Metaurus. Thereafter, the Carthaginians were increasingly confined to the toe of Italy, until Hannibal was recalled to Africa in the winter of 203/2.

Meanwhile in Spain, following the death of his father and uncle who had commanded there since 218, the young Publius Cornelius Scipio (‘Africanus’) had carried all before him. Landing in 210 at Tarraco (Tarragona), he first put his army through rigorous training and then in 209 made a lightning strike at Cartagena, the capital of Carthaginian Spain. This was followed by a victory at Baecula (Baylén) over Hasdrubal, which led the latter to depart for Italy, and a final victory over the new Carthaginian commander, Hasdrubal Gisgo, at Ilipa near Seville in 206. After dealing with a mutiny and mopping up Celtiberian resistance in the Ebro valley, Scipio returned to Italy and triumphant election as consul in 205.

He seems to have been determined from the first to carry the war to Africa, and after some opposition from senators led by Fabius, he was duly assigned to Sicily, with the option of using the island as a springboard for the invasion of Tunisia. Because of renewed opposition sparked by an ugly incident involving one of his lieutenants at Locri, and also because he needed to train his men, he did not actually proceed to the invasion of Africa until the summer of 204, and even then it was a year before he broke out of his beachhead to win the battle of the Great Plains, and to bring direct pressure on Carthage by occupying Tunis, while his lieutenants overran Numidia (Algeria).

Carthage now sued for peace, and negotiations had probably reached a fairly advanced stage when an attack on Roman supply ships, carried to the vicinity of the city by bad weather, precipitated a renewal of the conflict. Carthaginian attitudes may also have hardened as a result of the return of Hannibal with some of his veteran troops during the negotiations. At all events, military operations were resumed by Scipio with great vigour, and eventually Hannibal was compelled by the clamours of his fellow countrymen to confront his rival inadequately prepared. The decisive encounter, known as the battle of Zama, took place in October 202 and resulted in a complete victory for Rome, following which Hannibal insisted that peace be made.

The peace stripped Carthage of her navy and of Spain, but left intact her main strength, which had always been commerce. This attracted the fearful envy of such as Marcus Cato, who returned from an embassy c.153 convinced that ‘delenda est Cathago’ (Carthage must be destroyed), which he declaimed regularly thereafter in the Senate. Rome had created a rival to Carthage in the Numidian King Massinissa and he encroached on Carthaginian territory, knowing that Roman envoys sent to arbitrate would be prejudiced in his favour. Finally, in 150, Carthage's patience snapped and Rome was presented with an excuse to declare war when a Carthaginian army invaded Numidia in defiance of the treaty with Rome. Realizing that they stood no chance, the Carthaginians formally surrendered, but when ordered to move their city at least 10 miles (16 km) from the sea, determined to fight after all. After a series of incompetent generals had failed to take the city, command was finally given to Scipio Aemilianus, grandson of the consul killed at Cannae and adoptive grandson of Scipio ‘Africanus’. It was he who finally took the city in 146, razed it to the ground, sowed salt in the ruins, and sold the inhabitants into slavery.

Bibliography

  • Caven, Brian, The Punic Wars (London, 1980).
  • Lazenby, J. F., The First Punic War (London, 1996).
  • ——Hannibal's War (Warminster, 1978)

— John Lazenby

Punic Wars, three wars (264–241 BC; 218–201 BC; and 149–146 BC) in which Rome successfully fought Carthage for dominance in the western Mediterranean. The name comes from the Latin word Poeni (‘Carthaginians’, adj. Punicus, ‘Carthaginian’). Rome, having by 270 BC won control of the Italian peninsula, found herself confronted across the Straits of Messina by a rival power who now ruled not only the north and west of Sicily but also the greater part of North Africa, Sardinia, Corsica, and the cities on the coast of southern Spain. In 264 the Carthaginians occupied Messana (modern Messina) in north-east Sicily, and the Romans felt that trade and security would be threatened if Carthage encroached further. While the senate hesitated, the people decided to accept an alliance with Messana which led directly to war.

The First Punic War was centred on Sicily. The Romans won sea battles at Mylae (260) and Cape Ecnomus (256), overcoming superior Carthaginian seamanship by the innovative use of grappling-irons. Mastery of the sea allowed them to land unopposed in Africa, but after early successes there, they were defeated, and Regulus, who had commanded the force, was captured. However, another Roman sea-victory off the Aegātēs Insulae (242) caused the Carthaginians to sue for peace. They evacuated Sicily (except for the dominion of Hieron II), which then became the first Roman province, and paid a large indemnity.

When the First Punic War ended, Carthage turned to Spain to recoup wealth and man-power, and between 237 and 219 Hamilcar Barca, Hasdrubal, and Hannibal gradually conquered that country. Hannibal's attack on Rome's Spanish ally Saguntum in 219 deliberately precipitated the Second Punic War. This was one of the great struggles of the ancient world, fought in several theatres. Hannibal anticipated the dispatch of Roman expeditions to Spain and Africa and struck first by invading north Italy. There he defeated one great army after another, that of P. Scipio at the river Ticinus in 218, that of Scipio and Tib. Sempronius Longus at the river Trebia in the same year (both rivers tributaries of the Po), and that of C. Flaminius at Lake Trasimene in 217, when Flaminius was himself killed. Hannibal then moved to the south to detach the allies from Rome. At this crisis Rome appointed a dictator, Quintus Fabius Maximus, who acquired the cognomen Cunctator, ‘delayer’, from following the invader and harassing him, while refusing a general engagement. In 216 the new consuls C. Terentius Varro and L. Aemilius Paullus were authorized to risk a decisive battle to protect the territory of Rome's allies, with the result that at Cannae Rome suffered the bloodiest of all her defeats, losing perhaps 50, 000 men, half of them Roman. Hannibal remained in Italy for fifteen years and was undefeated in battle, but Fabius continued to wear down his strength and the tide began to turn against Carthage. M. Claudius Marcellus captured Syracuse in 211, despite the weapons of war devised by Archimedēs, and thus weakened the power of Carthage in Sicily; Hasdrubal, who had gone to aid Hannibal in Italy, was defeated and killed at the river Metaurus (in Umbria, 207); and Scipio Africanus drove the Carthaginians from Spain (206). The scene of war was now transferred to Africa and Hannibal and the Punic army were recalled from Italy. They were beaten by Scipio in a pitched battle at Zama (202) and Carthage accepted harsh peace-terms. It was the end of her position as a great Mediterranean power.

Carthage retained, however, her commercial importance; she continued to compete successfully with Rome in trade, and was a source of uneasiness there. She had undertaken to wage no wars in Africa without the consent of Rome, but in 151 the depredations of Masinissa, the ruler of the adjoining Numidian kingdom and the friend of Rome, goaded her into retaliation (150). In 149 Rome used this pretext to initiate the Third Punic War. Cato (the Censor), from motives of revenge and fear, urged its destruction, and an army under Manilius landed in Africa. Carthage surrendered, handed over hostages and arms, and then heard the terms that the city must be destroyed. Unexpectedly she refused to comply and withstood a siege until 146, when Scipio Aemilianus captured the city and demolished it. With Carthage destroyed her territory was made into the Roman province of Africa.

Columbia Encyclopedia:

Punic Wars

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Punic Wars, three distinct conflicts between Carthage and Rome. When they began, Rome had nearly completed the conquest of Italy, while Carthage controlled NW Africa and the islands and the commerce of the W Mediterranean. When they ended, Carthage was ruined, and Rome was the greatest power W of China. The first war saw Rome fighting to break Carthage's growing hold on the chain of islands that enable it to control the W Mediterranean. The second war directly pitted the ambitions of the two commercial powers; the initial area of conflict was Sicily. The last war was the final, desperate attempt of Carthage to preserve Punic (Carthaginian) liberty.

First Punic War

The First Punic War, 264-241 B.C., grew immediately out of a quarrel between the Sicilian cities of Messana (now Messina) and Syracuse. One faction of the Messanians called on Carthage for help and another faction called on Rome. The Strait of Messana, which separates the Italian Peninsula from Sicily, was of extreme strategic importance, and both powers responded. The Punic army arrived in Sicily first, arranged a peace between Messana and Syracuse, and established a garrison. Upon its arrival, the Roman army ejected the Carthaginians from the garrison, and thus the war began.

Roman legions occupied E Sicily, and the newly created Roman fleet, after victories at Mylae (260) and off Cape Ecnomus (256), landed a force in Africa. This excursion was a failure, and its commander, Regulus, was captured (255) by the Greek mercenary general Xanthippus. In Sicily the Romans took Palermo (254) but were effectively blocked farther west by the brilliant guerrilla warfare of Hamilcar Barca, and they failed to take Lilybaeum, the chief Punic base. The Romans equipped a new fleet that destroyed (241) the Punic fleet off the Aegates (now Aegadian Isles), and Carthage sued for peace. The terms were the payment of an indemnity and the cession of Punic Sicily to Rome. The chief events of the next 20 years were the Roman entry into Sardinia and Corsica-a gross breach of treaty-and the conquests in Spain by Hamilcar.

Second Punic War

When Hamilcar Barca's son Hannibal took (219) the Spanish city of Saguntum (present-day Sagunto), a Roman ally, Rome declared war. This Second Punic, or Hannibalic, War, 218-201 B.C., was one of the titanic struggles of history. Rome owed its success to various factors: its stubborn will and splendid military organization; its superior economic resources; its generals, Fabius and, above all, Scipio; the failure of supply from Carthage to Hannibal's Italian army; and the mountainous character of central Italy, which rendered the Punic superiority in cavalry nearly useless. For the course of the war, see Hannibal and Scipio Africanus Major. At the war's close, Carthage surrendered to Rome its Spanish province and its war fleet.

Third Punic War

The Third Punic War, 149-146 B.C., originated, like the others, in a deliberate Roman aggression, the result of agitation by Cato the Elder for the destruction of Carthage. Charging Carthage with a technical breach of treaty in resisting the encroachment of the Numidian king Masinissa (a Roman ally), Rome declared war and blockaded the city. Carthage never surrendered. The younger Scipio (Scipio Africanus Minor) conquered it, house by house, and sold the surviving inhabitants into slavery. The city was razed and its site plowed up.

Bibliography

The Latin accounts of the wars are biased, and there are no Punic ones; the best source is Polybius. See also Cambridge Ancient History, Vol. VIII (2d ed. 1989).


(pyooh-nik)

Three wars between ancient Carthage and Rome in the third and second centuries b.c. Hannibal led the forces of Carthage in the second Punic War. Carthage was destroyed after the third Punic War.

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Punic Wars

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Carthaginian Possessions through the Punic Wars

The Punic Wars were a series of three wars fought between Rome and Carthage from 264 BC to 146 BC. [1] At the time, they were probably the largest wars that had ever taken place.[2] The term Punic comes from the Latin word Punicus (or Poenicus), meaning "Carthaginian", with reference to the Carthaginians' Phoenician ancestry.[3]

The main cause of the Punic Wars was the conflict of interests between the existing Carthaginian Empire and the expanding Roman Republic. The Romans were initially interested in expansion via Sicily (which at that time was a cultural melting pot), 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, but lacked the naval power of Carthage. By the end of the third war, after more than a hundred years and the loss of many hundreds of thousands of soldiers from both sides, Rome had conquered Carthage's empire and completely destroyed 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 King 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 one of the most powerful cities in classical antiquity. The Roman victories over Carthage in these wars gave Rome a preeminent status it would retain until the 5th century AD.

Contents

Background

Depiction of Hannibal and his army crossing the Alps during the Second Punic War.

During the mid-3rd century BC, Carthage was a large city located on the coast of modern Tunisia. Founded by the Phoenicians in the mid-9th century BC, it was a powerful thalassocratic city-state with a vast commercial network. 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, Carthage relied mostly on mercenaries, especially Numidian, to fight its wars.[4] 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 2000 BC the Roman Republic had gained control of the Italian peninsula south of the Po river. Unlike Carthage, Rome had large disciplined armed forces. On the other hand, at the start of the First Punic War the Romans had no navy, and were thus at a disadvantage until they began to construct their own large fleets during the war.

First Punic War (264 to 241 BC)

The First Punic War (264–241 BC) was fought partly on land in Sicily and Africa, but was largely a naval war. It began as a local conflict in Sicily between Hiero II of Syracuse, and the Mamertines of Messina. The Mamertines enlisted the aid of the Carthaginian navy, and then subsequently betrayed them by entreating the Roman Senate for aid against Carthage. The Romans sent a garrison to secure Messina, so the outraged Carthaginians then lent aid to Syracuse. With the two powers now embroiled in the conflict, tensions quickly escalated into a full-scale war between Carthage and Rome for the control of Sicily. After a harsh 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 concentrate on the sea where they believed Carthage's large navy had the advantage. Initially the Carthaginian navy prevailed. In 260 BC they defeated the fledgling Roman navy at the Battle of the Lipari Islands. Rome responded by drastically expanding its navy in a very short time. Within two months the Romans had a fleet of over one hundred warships. Because they knew that they could not defeat the Carthaginians in the traditional tactics of ramming and sinking enemy ships, the Romans added the corvus, an assault bridge, to Roman ships. The hinged bridge would swing onto enemy vessels with a sharp spike and stop them. Roman legionaries could then board and capture Carthaginian ships. 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 a nearly unbroken string of Roman victories. In 241 BC, Carthage signed a peace treaty under the terms of which they evacuated Sicily and paid Rome a large war indemnity. The long war was costly to both powers, but Carthage was more seriously destabilized. In 238 BC, Carthage was plunged into the Mercenary War, during which Rome seized Sardinia and Corsica. Rome was now the most powerful state in the western Mediterranean: its large navy able to prevent seaborne invasion of Italy, control important sea trade routes, and invade foreign shores.[5]

Aftermath

Carthage spent the years following the war improving its finances and expanding its colonial empire in Hispania under the militaristic 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, starting the second Punic War.

Interval between the First and Second Punic Wars

According to Polybius there had been several trade agreements between Rome and Carthage, even a mutual alliance against king Pyrrhus of Epirus. When Rome and Carthage made peace in 241 BC, Rome secured the release of all 8,000 prisoners of war without ransom and, furthermore, received a considerable amount of silver as a war indemnity. However, Carthage refused to deliver to Rome the Roman deserters serving among their troops. A first issue for dispute was that the initial treaty, agreed upon by Hamilcar Barca and the Roman commander in Sicily, had a clause stipulating that the Roman popular assembly had to accept the treaty in order for it to be valid. The assembly not only rejected the treaty but increased the indemnity Carthage had to pay.

Carthage had a liquidity problem and attempted to gain financial help from Egypt, a mutual ally of Rome and Carthage, but failed. This resulted in delay of payments owed to the mercenary troops that had served Carthage in Sicily, leading to a climate of mutual mistrust and, finally, a revolt supported by the Libyan natives, known as the Mercenary War (240–238 BC). During this war, Rome and Syracuse both aided Carthage, although traders from Italy seem to have done business with the insurgents. Some of them were caught and punished by Carthage, aggravating the political climate which had started to improve in recognition of the old alliance and treaties.

During the uprising in the Punic mainland, the mercenary troops in Corsica and Sardinia toppled Punic rule and briefly established their own, but were expelled by a native uprising. After securing aid from Rome, the exiled mercenaries then regained authority on the island of Sicily. For several years a brutal campaign was fought to quell the insurgent natives. Like many Sicilians, they would ultimately rise again in support of Carthage during the Second Punic War.

Eventually, Rome annexed Corsica and Sardinia by revisiting the terms of the treaty that ended the first Punic War. As Carthage was under siege and engaged in a difficult civil war, they begrudgingly accepted the loss of these islands and the subsequent Roman conditions for ongoing peace, which also increased the war indemnity levied against Carthage after the first Punic War. This eventually plunged relations between the two powers to a new low point.

After Carthage emerged victorious from the Mercenary War there were two opposing factions: the reformist party was led by Hamilcar Barca while the other, more conservative, faction was represented by Hanno the Great and the old Carthaginian aristocracy. Hamilcar had led the initial Carthaginian peace negotiations and was blamed for the clause that allowed the Roman popular assembly to increase the war indemnity and annex Corsica and Sardinia, but his superlative generalship was instrumental in enabling Carthage to ultimately quell the mercenary uprising, ironically fought against many of the same mercenary troops he had trained. Hamilcar ultimately left Carthage for the Iberian peninsula where he captured rich silver mines and subdued many tribes who fortified his army with levies of native troops.

Hanno had lost many elephants and soldiers when he became complacent after a victory in the Mercenary War. Further, when he and Hamilcar were supreme commanders of Carthage's field armies, the soldiers had supported Hamilcar when his and Hamilcar's personalities clashed. On the other hand he was responsible for the greatest territorial expansion of Carthage's hinterland during his rule as strategus and wanted to continue such expansion. However, the Numidian king of the relevant area was now a son-in-law of Hamilcar and had supported Carthage during a crucial moment in the Mercenary War. While Hamilcar was able to obtain the resources for his aim, the Numidians in the Atlas Mountains were not conquered, like Hanno suggested, but became vassals of Carthage.

The Iberian conquest was begun by Hamilcar Barca and his other son-in-law, Hasdrubal the Fair, who ruled relatively independently of Carthage and signed the Ebro treaty with Rome. Hamilcar died in battle in 228 BC. Around this time, Hasdrubal became Carthaginian commander in Iberia (229 BC). He maintained this post for some eight years until 221 BC. Soon the Romans became aware of a burgeoning alliance between Carthage and the Celts of the Po river valley in northern Italy. The latter were amassing forces to invade Italy, presumably with Carthaginian backing. Thus, the Romans preemptively invaded the Po region in 225 BC. By 220 BC, the Romans had annexed the area as Gallia Cisalpina.[6] Hasdrubal was assassinated around the same time (221 BC), bringing Hannibal to the fore. It seems that, having apparently dealt with the threat of a Gaulo-Carthaginian invasion of Italy (and perhaps with the original Carthaginian commander killed), the Romans lulled themselves into a false sense of security. Thus, Hannibal took the Romans by surprise a mere two years later (218 BC) by merely reviving and adapting the original Gaulo-Carthaginian invasion plan of his brother-in-law Hasdrubal.

After Hasdrubal's assassination, Hamilcar's young sons took over, with Hannibal becoming the strategus of Iberia, although this decision was not undisputed in Carthage. The output of the Iberian silver mines allowed for the financing of a standing army and the payment of the war indemnity to Rome. The mines also served as a tool for political influence, creating a faction in Carthage's magistrate that was called the Barcino.

In 219 BC Hannibal attacked the town of Saguntum, which stood under the special protection of Rome. According to Roman tradition, Hannibal had been made to swear by his father never to be a friend of Rome, and he certainly did not take a conciliatory attitude when the Romans berated him for crossing the river Iberus (Ebro) which Carthage was bound by treaty not to cross. Hannibal did not cross the Ebro River (Saguntum was near modern Valencia — well south of the river) in arms, and the Saguntines provoked his attack by attacking their neighboring tribes who were Carthaginian protectorates and by massacring pro-Punic factions in their city. Rome had no legal protection pact with any tribe south of the Ebro River. Nonetheless, they asked Carthage to hand Hannibal over, and when the Carthaginian oligarchy refused, Rome declared war on Carthage.

The Barcid Empire

The 'Barcid Empire' consisted of the Punic territories in Iberia. According to the historian Pedro Barceló, it can be described as a private military-economic hegemony backed by the two independent powers, Carthage and Gades. These shared the profits of the silver mines in southern Iberia with the Barcas family and closely followed Hellenistic diplomatic customs. Gades played a supporting role in this field, but Hannibal visited the local temple to conduct ceremonies before launching his campaign against Rome. The Barcid Empire was strongly influenced by the Hellenistic kingdoms of the time and for example, contrary to Carthage, it minted silver coins in its short time of existence.[7][page needed][when?]

Second Punic War (218 to 201 BC)

The Second Punic War (218 BC – 201 BC) is most remembered for the Carthaginian Hannibal's crossing of the Alps. His army and he 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, Hispania and Sicily, Rome also simultaneously fought 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.

Hannibal's feat in crossing the Alps with war elephants passed into European legend: detail of a fresco by Jacopo Ripanda, ca. 1510, Capitoline Museums, Rome

There were three military theaters in this war: Italy, where Hannibal defeated the Roman legions repeatedly; Hispania, 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

After assaulting Saguntum, Hannibal surprised the Romans in 218 BC by leading the Iberians and three dozen 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 most of his 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 win the war.

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 Hispania. 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 Hispania, 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. Though he managed to sustain for 15 years, he did so only by ravaging farm lands, keeping his army healthy, which brought anger among the Roman's subject states. Realizing that Hannibal's army was outrunning its supply lines quickly, Rome took countermeasures against Hannibal's home base in Africa by sea command and stopped the flow of supplies. Hannibal quickly turned back and rushed to home defense, but was soundly defeated in the Battle of Zama.

Hasdrubal's campaign to reinforce Hannibal

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

Third Punic War (149 to 146 BC)

The Third Punic War (149–146 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 neighbor 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: "Carthago delenda est" — "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 in 146 BC.

After Rome emerged as victorious, significant Carthaginian settlements, such as those in Mauritania, were taken over and aggrandized by the Romans. Volubilis, for example, was an important Roman town situated near the westernmost border of Roman conquests. It was built on the site of the previous Carthaginian settlement that overlies an earlier neolithic habitation.[8]

In January 1985, Ugo Vetere, the mayor of Rome, and Chedly Klibi, the mayor of Carthage, signed a symbolic friendship and collaboration pact, "officially" ending the conflict between their cities.

References

  1. ^ Chris Scarre, "The Wars with Carthage," The manawy Historical Atlas of Ancient Rome (London: Penguin Books, 1995), 24–25.
  2. ^ Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 13
  3. ^ Sidwell, Keith C; Jones, Peter V. (1997). The world of Rome: an introduction to Roman culture. Cambridge University Press. p. 16. ISBN 0521386004. 
  4. ^ "Carthaginian". Dictionary.com. Reference. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Carthaginian 
  5. ^ Eckstein, Arthur M. Mediterranean Anarchy, Interstate War, and the Rise of Rome University of California Press (1 April 2009) ISBN 978-0520259928, p. 167.
  6. ^ Fagan, Garret G. "The History of Ancient Rome". Lecture 13: "The Second Punic War". Teaching Company, "Great Courses" series.
  7. ^ Pedro Barceló, Karthago und die Iberische Halbinsel vor den Barkiden
  8. ^ C.Michael Hogan, Volubilis, Megalithic Portal, ed. A. Burnham (2007)

 
 
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Battle of Zama
Marcellus, Marcus Claudius (Roman general)
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