The Punic Wars: Rome vs. Carthage
The Punic Wars were the longest, the most destructive, and the most consequential wars of the ancient Western world. Fought between Rome and the Phoenician city-state of Carthage over a period of just over a century, from 264 to 146 BCE, they culminated in the complete destruction of Carthage, the death or enslavement of its population, and the emergence of Rome as the undisputed master of the Mediterranean basin. The wars produced the most brilliant general of antiquity, Hannibal Barca, the most innovative battle of antiquity at Cannae, and the most decisive siege in the ancient world at Carthage itself.
This cluster page tells the story of the three Punic Wars. It links out to the Battle of Cannae, the Siege of Carthage, Hannibal Barca, the Phoenicians, the Roman Republic, and the Ancient Warfare pillar.
Carthage and the Phoenician Legacy
Carthage was the most important colony of the Phoenicians, the great seafaring and trading people of the eastern Mediterranean. According to tradition, the city was founded by Queen Dido in 814 BCE, on a site in modern Tunisia that was an ideal location for a maritime empire. By the third century BCE, Carthage controlled much of the western Mediterranean: the North African coast, southern Spain, the Balearic Islands, Sardinia, the western half of Sicily, and Malta. The Carthaginian navy was the most powerful in the western Mediterranean, and the Carthaginian merchant marine dominated the trade of the region.
The Carthaginian state was originally a constitutional monarchy, but it had gradually become an oligarchic republic ruled by a few wealthy merchant families. The most famous Carthaginian families were the Barcids (the family of Hannibal) and the Hannonids. The state had a large and disciplined army (largely composed of mercenaries from North Africa, Spain, and Gaul) and a sophisticated intelligence service.
The Romans called the Carthaginians Poeni (the Latin form of the Greek Phoinikes). The wars between Rome and Carthage were called the Bella Punica — the Punic Wars.
The First Punic War (264–241 BCE)
The First Punic War was fought over Sicily. The island, a rich agricultural region, had been fought over for centuries by the Greeks, the Carthaginians, and the local Sicels. In 264 BCE, a Roman army crossed the strait of Messina to help one Sicilian city against another, and the war quickly expanded. For twenty-three years, the war was fought on land and sea, with neither side able to deliver a decisive blow. The Romans, who had no navy to speak of at the beginning of the war, learned to build and row fleets; the Carthaginians, who were the better sailors, gradually lost the initiative. The war ended in 241 BCE with a Roman naval victory at the Aegates Islands, off the western tip of Sicily. Carthage was forced to evacuate Sicily, pay a large indemnity, and surrender its hold on the western Mediterranean.
The Second Punic War (218–201 BCE)
The Second Punic War was the most dangerous crisis in Roman history. It was provoked by the Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca, who, after the loss of Sicily, expanded Carthaginian power into Spain, where he and his sons Hannibal and Hasdrubal built a new Carthaginian empire in the Iberian Peninsula. The Romans, alarmed by Carthaginian expansion, signed a treaty in 226 BCE that recognized the Ebro River as the boundary between the two spheres of influence. In 219 BCE, Hannibal, who had succeeded his father as commander of the Carthaginian army in Spain, attacked Saguntum, a city south of the Ebro and a Roman ally. The Romans declared war.
Hannibal’s Invasion of Italy
In the spring of 218 BCE, Hannibal Barca marched his army — about 90,000 men, including 12,000 cavalry and 37 war elephants — from Spain across the Pyrenees, the Rhône, and the Alps, into the Po Valley. The crossing of the Alps was a logistical triumph: in the autumn, with his army already thinned by the mountain passes, he defeated a Roman army at the Battle of the Trebia. The next year, 217 BCE, he defeated another Roman army at Lake Trasimene, ambushing it in a narrow valley. In 216 BCE, the Romans appointed the consuls Lucius Aemilius Paullus and Gaius Terentius Varro to meet Hannibal in the open field. The result was the Battle of Cannae, the most famous tactical defeat in Roman history and one of the most important battles in the history of warfare.
After Cannae, Hannibal controlled most of southern Italy. The Romans, however, refused to negotiate. They adopted the “Fabian strategy” (named after the Roman general Quintus Fabius Maximus, who had recommended the strategy after Trasimene): they avoided pitched battles, harassed Hannibal’s supply lines, and waited for the Carthaginian army to be worn down. The strategy worked, slowly. Hannibal never received the reinforcements and supplies he needed from Carthage, and his army was gradually reduced from a conquering host to a desperate band. The Romans counterattacked in Spain, Africa, and Sicily, and in 204 BCE the Roman general Scipio Africanus invaded North Africa. Hannibal was recalled from Italy to defend Carthage, and in 202 BCE was defeated by Scipio at the Battle of Zama, in modern Tunisia. The war ended with the Peace of Zama in 201 BCE: Carthage gave up its navy, paid a large indemnity, and was forbidden to wage war without Roman permission.
The Between-Wars Period (201–149 BCE)
The half-century between the Second and Third Punic Wars was dominated by Roman expansion in the eastern Mediterranean. The Romans fought the Macedonian Wars against the Antigonid dynasty of Macedon, the Syrian Wars against the Seleucid Empire, and the Third Macedonian War that ended the Macedonian monarchy in 168 BCE. The Romans also interfered in Carthaginian affairs, demanding the surrender of Carthaginian arms and the payment of a huge indemnity. The Carthaginians paid the indemnity, demilitarized, and tried to rebuild their commercial empire, but they were under constant Roman pressure.
The Third Punic War (149–146 BCE)
The Third Punic War was provoked by a Carthaginian attempt to defend itself against the Numidian king Masinissa, a Roman ally. The Romans, led by the conservative senator Cato the Elder, used the incident to demand the total destruction of Carthage. The Carthaginians refused, and the Roman army besieged the city for three years. The full story of the final siege is told in The Siege of Carthage. When the city finally fell in the spring of 146 BCE, the Romans killed or enslaved the population, burned the city to the ground, and razed the buildings. The territory of Carthage became the Roman province of Africa.
The Aftermath
The destruction of Carthage made Rome the undisputed master of the Mediterranean. The Roman province of Africa became one of the richest agricultural regions of the empire, and the Roman conquest of the eastern Mediterranean kingdoms (Macedon, Greece, Pergamon, and finally Ptolemaic Egypt) followed within a generation. The Punic Wars also left a deep mark on Roman culture. The Roman hatred of Carthage persisted for centuries; the phrase Carthago delenda est (“Carthage must be destroyed”) became Cato’s famous warning against any compromise with the old enemy. The wars also inspired some of the greatest Roman literature: the histories of Polybius, Livy, and Nepos; the speeches of Cicero; and (in the Christian era) Tertullian’s claim that “Carthage was destroyed because it was wicked.”