Ancient History/Rome/Punic Wars

In the late-third and early-second century BCE, the Republic fought a series of wars against Carthage; initially a fight between two Mediterranean superpowers, the wars would culminate in Roman hegemony of the Western Mediterranean, and result in the end of the Carthaginian Empire, the city of Carthage itself finally being destroyed at the end of the Punic Wars in 146 BCE. The wars were vast in scale and significantly impacted every part of Roman society, the Second Punic War lingering as the last time the city of Rome would be threatened by a non-Roman military until the 5th century CE.

Roman-Carthaginian Relations

Before the outbreak of the First Punic War, the Romans and Carthaginians maintained diplomatic relations characterized by a mutual distrust. The Romans, fearing that the Carthaginians, whose empire dominated the coasts of Spain and had control of land up to Sardinia, Corsica, and Sicily, would take land in Italy, frequently stipulated that the Carthaginians were not to take any land on the Italian Peninsula. This fear is likely the reason why the Romans captured a significant amount of the Italian coastline, and also accounts for the construction of a coastal patrol fleet prior to the wars.

Carthage Before the War

The power in Carthage was held chiefly by a merchant aristocracy, helmed by two elected leaders not unlike the Roman consuls, but who notably did not wield military power, that being delegated instead to separate generals. Carthage itself was originally a colony of the Phoenicians; for this reason, despite the fact that they had become an empire in their own right long before the time of their diplomacy with the Romans, the Romans referred to the Carthaginians as Phoenicians, or Punicus in Latin. This Punic Heritage is what gives the Punic Wars their name.

Polybius, a later Greek historian, credited the difference between the Roman and Carthaginian military capabilities at the beginning of the conflict to the nations' different national focuses: the Carthaginians, having a long-standing naval tradition, and whose prosperity relied on overseas trade, excelled on the seas. The Romans fielded a better land military of soldiers recruited from within Roman lands, while the Carthaginians used their wealth to hire foreign mercenaries; an exception was made for their interest in Numidian cavalry, horsemen from North Africa who were generally renowned as highly skilled warriors. However, for much of the First Punic War, the Romans struggled to keep up with the Carthaginian Navy, while the Carthaginians would work to compensate for their disadvantages on land. Generally, most sources about Carthage and the Punic Wars tend to reflect non-Carthaginian perspectives, since the majority of Carthaginian sources were destroyed by the end of the Third Punic War.