The Punic Wars
In early world history, the Romans has been considered one of the most influential and powerful civilizations as they have revolutionized as to how society is organized and led. Like other civilizations, the Romans attempted to expand its territory outside its territories in order to sustain its people and also defeat possible threats that can challenge their ruling. One of the regions Rome had tried to conquer is the Mediterranean, which included the city of Carthage. Although both had respected their claims within the region, it was an inevitable occurrence that both would meet each other in the battlefield should one attempt to expand to the other’s territories. The Punic Wars of 264 BC to 146 BC resulted from the territorial conflict between Carthage and Rome in order to claim the right as the dominant Mediterranean power and control the region’s trading center based in Carthage.
According to Hansen and Curtis (2008) and Hoyos (2011), Rome was slowly gaining prominence by the time of 272 BC throughout the Italian peninsula and was gaining its momentum towards the Mediterranean where the Port City of Carthage is established. Carthage was established by the Phoenicians as a secured trading port located near the northern coast of Africa (Tunis and Morocco) and the southern half of Europe (Spain, Corsica, Sardinia and Sicily). The Carthaginian Empire used an oligarchic system of government in order to settle its affairs and like Rome, the Carthaginians were also attempting to expand its territories towards the southern half of Europe . Prior to the outbreak of war, both Rome and Carthage enjoyed a peaceful coexistence under various trading agreements and peace treaties, such as the 509 BC and 348 BC Roman-Punic treaties that stated as to how both Roman and Carthaginian merchants do business while in the other’s territories. The restrictions ensured that Romans could not settle their contacts within Carthaginian territory, a setback that did not stop Rome from moving towards Greek states .
Despite the peace that reigned between the two powers, peace was broken on 264 BC and triggered the First Punic War. According to Fields (2007), when Agathokles of Syracuse died in 289 BC, his mercenaries found themselves jobless and attempted to seize the polis within the region of Messana (today’s Messina), turning the area as their independent community. The establishment of these communities were sustained by the seizure in Rhegion (Reggio di Calabria) was done by Roman troops, leading to the establishment of the Mamertines. The Mamertines continued to move towards north-eastern Sicily and battled against the new leader of Syracuse Hieron II. While some of the Mamertines approached the Carthaginians to support their effort against Syracuse, however, there were others within the Mamertines who approached Rome for protection, betraying the Carthaginians who had already answered the request. The Carthaginians, who could have just avoided the conflict, supported Syracuse in their fight against the Mamertines .
The Carthaginians were known for their navy, according to Stevens (2009), however, their political and military system were flawed as not all of its fighters are willing to act as privates. The privates for the Carthaginian army were hired or pressured to join the force from their subject provinces. The Romans, in their side, only had a small navy, but their fighting force was exceptional as their fighters and allies work side by side to fight for Rome. In the first few years of the war, the Carthaginians had dominated the seas of Sicily before the Romans created their own force to attack the Carthaginians. The Carthaginians had even managed to develop the quinqueremes and triremes ships, succeeding in blocking Messina from Rome. However, on their second encounter, the Romans took a different approach and applied their infantry superiority to their ships, hooking them with spikes. The Consul Duilius took the Roman fleet back to Mylae in 260 BC, attacking the Carthaginians in full force. With the Romans utilizing their corvus and spikes, the Carthaginians lost 14 ships and the loss immediately caused disorder to occur around Carthage. After Mylae (controlling Sicily in the process), the Romans moved towards Africa and while the Carthagians failed to stop the progress in Cape Ecnomus, they were able to stop Marcus Atilius Regulus’ fleet before they ravaged the countryside. Spartan Xanthippus defeated the Roman army in the Battle of Tunis, rekindling Carthaginian superiority. However, the Romans did not take long to retaliate and attacked Lilybaeum (Carthaginian territory in Sicily) and Africa. They also moved to the city of Thermae in 252 BC before taking over Kephalodon (251 BC), resulting to the defeat of the Carthaginians in the region. The battle concluded in the Battle of the Aegates Islands in 241 BC with Roman consul Gaius Lutatius Catulus managed to take the Carthaginian fleet by surprise due to their earlier losses in Sicily. With the lack of funding and manpower, Carthage lost to the Romans and immediately entered talks for peace, paying indemnity to the Romans and relinquishing Sicily .
The two groups once again met in the Second Punic War or the Hannibalic War of 218-202 BC as it had matched two of the best generals in the period: Carthage’s Hannibal and Rome’s Scipio. According to historians, namely Greek historian Polybius, the war was caused by Hannibal’s desire to reclaim what Carthage has lost in the earlier war, claiming Rome’s territories in the process. Hannibal began his attack from New Carthage (Cartagena, Spain) with 50,000 infantry, 9,000 cavalry, and 37 elephants included in the Carthaginian fighting force. They marched for five months towards Southern France and towards the Alps, a decision Polybius stated to be audacious as the Alps, upon the time of the march, was cold enough to kill half of Hannibal’s men to death. True to his estimates, only the half of the army and a single elephant survived in the fifteen day march in the Alps. The Carthaginians were also varied in nationalities – Africans, Spaniards, Celts, Phoenicians, Italians and Greeks -, however Polybius argued that this would be a hindrance to Hannibal because it would prevent his army to move cohesively due to the lack of commonalities between these warriors. The Romans found this variety of fighters intimidating as each member of the Carthaginian force wore their specific national costumes or fighting gear. Nonetheless, this did not stop the Romans from attaining victory in this second bout as the Roman commanders employed a policy of rewards and punishments to its people, punishing them for failing or deserting the force, killing them slowly while in camp. Many Roman soldiers feared the punishment and ensured that they remain in their posts throughout the fight.
Returning back to the Carthaginians, Hannibal continued to enter Italy despite the small army he had after going down the Alps. He managed to win several major battles such as the battle in Trebia, Lake Trasimene and the Battle of Cannae. However, the Romans had countered Hannibal’s progression towards the Italian countryside by cutting him off his escape and allied routes. Quintus Fabius Maximus of the Roman army ensured that Hannibal would not be able to replenish his stocks as Rome is still unable to sustain further conflict in the Italian region while other wars were challenging its forces, such as the Macedonian wars against Philip V. With the lack of support and capacity to enter Rome, Rome defeated Hannibal’s forces in 202 BC at Zama, North Africa. The second force under Hannibal’s brother Hasdrubal, who was attacking in Hispania was defeated by Roman commander Publius Cornelius Scipio. Similar to the First Punic War, the Carthagians were heavily fined under the peace treaty. As a result, all of Carthage’s control in Spain was relinquished to Rome and its navy was reduced to only ten vessels. With its main rival crippled completely, Rome has overtaken Carthage as the leader within the Western Mediterranean.
Prior to the third faceoff between Rome and Carthage, Rome fought several other battles with the three successor states – Antigonids (Macedon), Seleucids (Syria) and the Ptolemies (Egypt) to consolidate its control within the Eastern Mediterranean. The Antigonids were defeated in 168 BC, exactly the same time historian Polybius was caught and brought to Rome. In that same year, the Ptolemaic Egypt entered talks with Rome to become a client state. The result of the talks enabled Rome to completely take the Eastern Mediterranean to its control, entering in various treaties to sustain its alliances and territories. In their end, the Carthaginians found themselves unable to protect itself from raids coming from its neighbors, namely Numibia (a client state of Rome in the period). Since the treaties ending the Second Punic War decreed that all disputes are to be brought to the Roman Senate, Carthage found itself unable to fight the Numidians and had to wait for fifty years to be released from their war indemnity. With a small force, they tried engaging against the Numidians, but lost due to the lack of influential capability.
The Romans were alarmed with the sudden Punic sentiment to fight their forces. Roman statesman Cato the Elder commented that Carthage must be destroyed if they continue their rearmament against Rome. In 149 BC, the Romans made several demands to the Carthaginians to tempt them into a battle. The first demand involved the surrender of almost three hundred children as hostages, while dismantling the city to be recreated far away from Africa’s coast. The Carthaginians did not accept the demand and triggered the Third Punic War. With the lack of fighting power due to their successive losses from the First and Second Punic Wars, the Carthaginians had been forced to use its own men to protect the city. Scipio Aemilianus took charge of the siege and successfully breached Carthage in 146 BC, taking many slaves in the process. He had ordered his men to destroy Carthage completely, while the Roman senate passed a bill that would ensure that no one would rebuild or recreate Carthage. The freed area from the Carthaginian wreckage was adopted to North Africa, while Rome took over Mauretania and Volubilis as they were rich Carthaginian settlements that were near the Western Roman borders .
The entire conflict between the Romans and the Carthaginians showcase both groups’ desire to become the dominant force within the Mediterranean and establish their territories to ensure further development. Both forces showed their specialties throughout the three conflicts and changed the course of both history and dominance in the region. Out of the three wars between Carthage and Rome, the war acted as a turning point for the change of leadership within the Mediterranean as Rome had succeeded in expanding its control towards the Carthaginian territories, cementing Rome’s position as the dominant force in the region. Although the Romans were earlier dominated by the powerful Carthaginian navy, it had revised its policy and applied their own expertise in fighting as a formidable infantry force into their fledgling navy. As the Romans continued to dominate against the Carthaginian forces, it had ensured its place by removing its rival force and successfully influenced the region’s policies and development under the treaties throughout the conflict.
Bibliography
Fields, Nic. The Roman Army of the Punic Wars, 264-146 BC. Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2007.
Hansen, Valerie, and Kenneth Curtis. Voyages in World History. Boston: Wadsworth, 2008.
Hoyos, Dexter. "The Outbreak of War." In A Companion to the Punic Wars, by Dexter Hoyos, 131-148. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2011.
Stevens, William. History of Sea Power. Bremen: Salzwasser-Verlag, 2009.
