How did Rome defeat the cartaginians?

Answer 1

In the First Punic War, which was fought in Sicily, the rugged terrain created a stalemate in the land war. This conflict was fought mainly at sea. The Carthaginian had a very good navy and excellent sailors. Rome built a fleet from scratch, but her sailors were inexperienced. To make up for this they built a boarding bridge (the corvus) of their ships. This worked well and the Romans won several battles. However, it made the ships top heavy and vulnerable in storms. The corvus was eventually ditched. Despite this, Rome still won the final naval battle of the war.

In the Second Punic War, Hannibal invaded Italy and routed the armies of the Romans and their Italian allies four times. The Romans switched to a strategy of attrition. They avoided open battles against Hannibal and harassed him. They got Hannibal stuck in the south of Italy. They concentrated on retaking Capua (Italy's second largest city) which sided with Hannibal. They then sent several legions to different parts of the south to retake towns seized by the Carthaginians. The manpower available to Rome was far greater than that of Hannibal, who was leading what was an expeditionary force. The Romans also intercepted Hasdrubal, Hannibal's brother who was taking reinforcements for Hannibal from Spain (Hannibal's power base). Rome also won a war in southern Spain , defeating the Carthaginians there, and took over this area. At this point, with no chance of getting reinforcements, Hannibal's campaign came to a dead end. Finally, the Romans started a campaign in Tunisia (Carthage's homeland) forcing Hannibal to leave Italy to fight there. They won this final battle.

It was relatively easy for Rome to win the Third Punic War. The power of Carthage had been severely curtailed by the previous war.