D. The Punic Wars:
i)
The First Punic War: (264- 241 B.C.)
- Started
when the Greek city state, Syracuse in Sicily was attacked by Italian
mercenaries.
- Syracuse
attacked the mercenaries in return.
- Syracuse
asked Carthage for help.
- The
Italian mercenaries went to Rome for help.
- The
Romans saw the Carthaginians in Sicily as a threat so they got involved.
- The
Romans built a navy and defeated the Carthaginians at sea.
- They then attached the Carthaginians in their own land.
- The
Romans were defeated by Carthaginian battle elephants.
- In the
next few years, the Romans lost many ships at sea - 600 warships and 1000
transports and
200,000 men
- They got
enough money from wealthy Romans, who were to be repaid if Rome won,to rebuild
their fleet.
- Rome
defeated the Carthaginians in a major sea battle.
- The new
Roman ships were called quinqueremes:
- a one
deck vessel with five men to an oar.
- 20 to 60
oars per boat.
- suited
for ramming
- added a
corvus (raven)
- added a
gang plank with a large spike on the end. When it was let down, the troops could
enter the other ship
- turned
sea battles into land battles.
- Carthage
made peace.
- Rome
gained complete control of the Mediterranean
- Rome now
had a large fighting force.
- gave Rome
Sicily
- gave Rome
Sardinia
- gave Rome
substantial money.
ii)
The Second Punic War: (218 - 201 B.C.)
- Spain was
divided between Rome and Carthage
- Rome
aligned itself with a city on Carthage's side thus violating a treaty
- The
Carthaginian military leader at the time was Hannibal. He was the son of
Hamilcar Barca, who had done
much to restore
Carthaginian power after the First Punic War.
- He was
stationed in Spain and he attacked the Roman ally.
- Hannibal
ruled the Iberian Peninsula like a private kingdom.
- Rome
asked for Hannibal's surrender
- When
Carthage declined, Rome declared war
- In 218
B.C., Hannibal left Spain and lead a land based attack on Rome.
- He
crossed the Alps with 40,000 troops and 60 elephants.
It took 15 days.
- When he
arrived in Italy, only 26,000 soldiers and 20 elephants survived.
- He won
four great battles over the next two years.
- These
battles were astounding for the magnitude of Roman losses.
- On August
2, 216 B.C., at Cannae, in southern Italy, 50,000 Roman soldiers died in one day
out of a total of
86,000.
- The
Romans retreated inside their city walls while Hannibal conquered most of the
Italian Peninsula. The
cities were too
strong to attack and he had no way to get reinforcements.
- With
patience, the Romans mounted a guerrilla war against him and slowly moved him
out of Italy.
- In 205
B.C., Publius Comilius Scipio ( later given the title Africanus ) took an
army of 35,000 men to
Africa to attack
Carthage forcing Hannibal to return to defend it.
- At Zama
in 202 B.C., Scipio defeated Hannibal and Carthage sued for peace.
- Rome
hounded Hannibal for the rest of his life.
He committed suicide
-
The peace settlement:
- The Carthaginians were obliged to pay huge war reparations
- They forfeited their commercial empire.
- They had to dismantle their once powerful navy
iii) The
Third Punic War: (149 - 146 B.C.)
- The
excuse was found when Numidia, an African kingdom, fearful of Carthage's rising
power, asked Rome
for help. The
Romans not only defeated Carthage, but completely destroyed the city.
- The city was plundered, burned and eventually ploughed under. The Romans poured salt in the furrows.