Punic Wars
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| Punic Wars |
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| First – Mercenary – Second – Third |
The Punic Wars were a series of three wars fought between Rome and the Phoenician city of Carthage. They are known as the Punic Wars because the Latin term for Carthaginian was Punici (older Poenici, from their Phoenician ancestry).
The main cause of the Punic Wars was the clash of interests between the existing Carthaginian Empire and the expanding Roman sphere of influence. The Romans were initially interested in expansion via Sicily, most of which lay under Carthaginian control. At the start of the first Punic War, Carthage was the dominant power of the Mediterranean, with an extensive maritime empire, while Rome was the rapidly ascending power in Italy. By the end of the third war, after the death of many hundreds of thousands of soldiers from both sides, Rome had conquered Carthage's empire and razed the city, becoming in the process 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 Emperor Antiochus III the Great (Treaty of Apamea, 188 BC) in the eastern sea, Rome emerged as the dominant Mediterranean power and the most powerful country in the classical world. This was a turning point that meant that the civilization of the ancient Mediterranean would pass to the modern world via Europe instead of Africa.
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[edit] Punic Wars
| Punic Wars |
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| First – Mercenary – Second – Third |
In 264 BC, Carthage was a Phoenician colony on the coast of modern Tunisia. It was a powerful city-state with a large commercial empire and with the exception of Rome, the strongest power in the western Mediterranean. While Carthage's navies were uncontested, it did not maintain a strong standing army. Instead, it relied on mercenaries, hired with its considerable wealth, to fight its wars.
As soon as Rome had consolidated its control in Italy, it came into conflict with Carthage as Rome attempted to expand its influence into the Mediterranean. Rome and Carthage would fight a series of three Punic Wars between 264 and 146 BC. The Roman victories over Carthage in these wars made Rome the most powerful nation in Europe and the Mediterranean, a status it would retain until the division of the Roman Empire into the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire by Diocletian in 286 AD.
[edit] First Punic War (264 to 241 BC)
The First Punic War (264 BC - 241 BC) was fought partly on land in Sicily and Africa, but was also a naval war to a large extent. The struggle was costly to both powers, but Rome was victorious — it conquered the island of Sicily. The effect of the war destabilized Carthage so much that Rome was able to seize Sardinia and Corsica a few years later when Carthage was plunged into the Mercenary War.
| First Punic War |
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| Messina - Agrigentum – Lipari Islands – Mylae – Sulci – Tyndaris – Cape Ecnomus – Adys – Tunis – Panormus – Drepana – Lillybaeum - Siege of Drepana - Mt Ercte - 1st Mt Eryx - Raid of Tarentum - 2nd Mt Eryx - Aegates Islands |
The First Punic War between Rome and Carthage began as a local conflict in Sicily between Hiero II of Syracuse, and the Mamertines of Messina. The Mamertines had the bad judgment to enlist the aid of the Carthaginian navy, and then betray the Carthaginians by entreating the Roman Senate for aid against Carthage. The Romans sent a garrison to secure Messina, and the outraged Carthaginians then lent aid to Syracuse. With the two local powers now embroiled in a local conflict, local tensions quickly escalated into a full-scale war between Carthage and Rome for the control of Sicily.
The first Punic war was mostly a naval war. After a sound defeat at the land battle of Agrigentum, the Carthaginian leadership resolved to avoid direct land-based engagements with the Roman legions, and concentrated on the sea.
Initially, an experienced Carthaginian navy prevailed against an amateur Roman Navy (see: Battle of the Lipari Islands). Rome responded by drastically expanding its navy (there is some dispute whether or not it did so by copying storm-beached and captured Carthaginian warships): within two months the Romans had a fleet of over 100 warships. Because they knew that they could not outsail the Carthaginians, the Romans added an "assault bridge" to Roman ships, known as corvus - the "Raven". This bridge would latch onto enemy vessels, bring them to a standstill, and allow Roman legionaries to board and capture Carthaginian ships with ease. This tactic stripped the Carthaginian navy of its advantage (superiority in ship-to-ship engagement), 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 the naval engagements of Lipari Islands and Drepana, the first Punic war was mostly an unbroken string of Roman victories. In 241 BC, Carthage signed a peace treaty giving Rome the total control of Sicily.
In 238 BC the mercenary troops of Carthage revolted (see Mercenary War) and Rome took the opportunity to seize the islands of Corsica and Sardinia away from Carthage as well. From that point on, the Romans used the term "Mare Nostrum" - "our sea" and effectively controlled the Mediterranean. Rome's navies could prevent amphibious invasion upon Italy, control the important and rich sea trade routes, and invade other shores.
[edit] Second Punic War (218 to 202 BC)
The Second Punic War (218 BC – 202 BC) is famous for the Carthaginian Hannibal's crossing of the Alps. He and his army invaded Italy from the north and defeated the Roman army in several battles, but never achieved the ultimate goal of causing a political break between Rome and its allies. The Alps had caused Hannibal to lose many of his men and war elephants. (Only one water elephant,a sturdy animal nicknamed the 'Syrian', remained when Hannibal reached the Republic.) Hispania, Sicily and Greece were also key theatres, Rome emerging victorious in all three. Eventually, the war was taken to Africa, and Carthage was defeated at the Battle of Zama, its territory being reduced to the city itself in a striking loss of power.
| Second Punic War |
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| Saguntum – Lilybaeum – Ticinus – Trebia – Cissa – Lake Trasimene – Ebro River – Cannae – 1st Nola – Dertosa – 2nd Nola – Cornus – 3rd Nola – 1st Capua – Silarus – 1st Herdonia – Syracuse – Upper Baetis – 2nd Capua – 2nd Herdonia – Numistro – Asculum – Tarentum – Baecula – Grumentum – Metaurus – Ilipa – Crotona – Utica – Bagbrades – Cirta – Po Valley – Great Plains – Zama |
Carthage spent the following years improving its finances and expanded its colonial empire in Hispania (modern Spain), under the Barcid family, while Rome's attention was mostly concentrated on the Illyrian Wars. However, the Barcid family had not forgotten the defeats of the first Punic war, and its most famous member Hannibal Barca, swore a sacred oath never to be a friend to Rome. In 221 BC Hannibal attacked Saguntum in Spain, a city allied to Rome, beginning the Second Punic War.
Hannibal was a master strategist who knew that the Roman cavalry was, as a rule, weak and vulnerable and therefore enlisted superior Numidian light cavalry along with Gallic and Hispanic heavy cavalry into his armies, with devastating effect on the Roman legions.
There were three military theaters in this war: Italy, where Hannibal defeated the Roman legions repeatedly; Spain, where Hasdrubal Barca, 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.
After assaulting Saguntum, Hannibal surprised the Romans, by directly invading Italy, leading a large army of mercenaries composed mainly of Gauls, Hispanics, Numidians, and most famously a dozen African war elephants, through the Alps. Hannibal's forces defeated the Roman legions in several major engagements, most famously at the Battle of Cannae, but his long-term strategy failed. Lacking siege engines and sufficient numbers to take the city of Rome itself, he had planned to turn the Italian allies against Rome and starve the city out. 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.
More importantly, Hannibal never received any significant reinforcements from Carthage, despite his many pleas. This lack of reinforcements prevented Hannibal from decisively ending the conflict by conquering Rome through force of arms.
Rome, on the other hand, was also incapable of bringing the conflict in the Italian theater to a decisive close. Not only were they contending with Hannibal in Italy, and his brother in Spain, but Rome had embroiled itself in yet another foreign war, and was fighting the first of its Macedonian wars at the same time.
With Hannibal lacking decisive force from Carthage, and the Roman military spread over three separate theatres of conflict, Hannibal's Italian war carried on inconclusively for sixteen years.
In Spain, a young Roman commander, Publius Cornelius Scipio (later to be given the agnomen Africanus because of his feats during this war), eventually defeated the Carthaginian forces under Hasdrubal. Abandoning Spain, Hasdrubal attempted to bring his mercenary army into Italy to reinforce Hannibal, but was utterly defeated and killed at the decisive Battle of the Metaurus before he could do so. Scipio captured the local Carthaginian cities, made several alliances with local rulers, and then invaded Africa itself.
With Carthage now directly threatened, Hannibal returned to Africa to face Scipio, but at the final Battle of Zama in 202 BC the Romans finally defeated Hannibal. Carthage sued for peace, and Rome agreed, first stripping Carthage of its foreign colonies, forcing it to pay a huge indemnity, and forbidding it to own either an army or a significant navy again. Hannibal took a leadership role in rebuilding Carthage, and succeeded so well that his envious rivals and a vengeful Rome forced him to flee to Asia Minor in 195 BC, where he served several local kings as a military adviser until he committed suicide in 183 BC to avoid his capture by Roman agents.
[edit] Third Punic War (149 BC to 146 BC)
The Third Punic War (149 BC - 146 BC) involved an extended siege of Carthage, ending in the city's 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 since the second war.
Rome now concentrated its attention on its ongoing Macedonian wars, and into pacifying its newly acquired territory in Hispania.
Carthage, however, was reduced to a single city-state, with no military, under huge financial debt, and dependent on Rome for military protection and arbitration of international matters. With no military, Carthage suffered raids from its neighbour Numidia, and under the terms of the Roman treaty, such disputes were arbitrated by the Roman Senate. As Numidia was a favored "client state" of Rome, Roman rulings were slanted heavily in Numidian favor.
After some fifty years of this condition, Carthage managed to discharge its war indemnity, and considered itself no longer bound by the restrictions of the treaty, although Rome believed otherwise. It mustered an army to repel Numidian forces, and immediately lost a war with Numidia, placing themselves in further debt, 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 by saying: "Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam." - "I also think that Carthage must be destroyed".
In 149 BC, in an attempt to pacify Carthage, Rome made a series of escalating demands, ending with the near-impossible demand that the city be demolished and re-built away from the coast, deeper into Africa. The Carthaginians refused this last demand and Rome declared the Third Punic War. Scipio Aemilianus besieged the city for three years before he breached the walls, sacked the city, and burned Carthage to the ground. The Romans went so far as to sow salt into the earth so that nothing might ever be grown there. The surviving Carthaginians were sold into slavery, and Carthage ceased to exist, until Octavian rebuilt the city as a Roman veterans' colony over a century later.
