The Punic Wars

South of Italy on the shores of North Africa, a city existed whose democratic prowess, economic stability, and militaristic outlook was very much akin to that of Rome. That city was Carthage. The Carthaginians were descended from Phoenician traders from the Eastern Mediterranean, and were a formidable naval power at the time of Rome first major contact with them in the 3^rd Century B.C. In the southern Mediterranean, trade routes were dominated by Carthage, who controlled the African coast from modern-day Tunisia to the Pillars of Hercules. Unlike the Romans, who required military service from their young men, the Carthaginians relied heavily on a mercenary army, and used more diplomacy in their attempts to settle disputes (Starr, 22). The first major Roman diplomatic interaction with the Carthaginians was at the beginning of the Roman Republic, where the two nations forged a treaty in which Carthage agreed to not interfere with the Roman sphere of interest in Italy and the Roman merchants were banned from the shore of Africa (23). However, as Rome and Carthage both expanded throughout the centuries eventually conflict seemed inevitable.

The rivalry between the Carthaginians and Romans in the 3^rd Century B.C. was fueled by somewhat mythical tales of Aeneas, citizen of Troy and legendary founder of Rome, breaking the heart and betraying Queen Dido, the mythical founder of Carthage. These stories were committed to writing in Virgil’s The Aeneid. Despite these “tensions,” which were likely fiction, the Romans and Carthaginians did come at odds in Sicily in the mid-200s B.C.  For many years preceding the 3^rd Century, the Carthaginians, who had possessions on the western end of the island, had been at odds with the Greek Syracusans, who were centered around the city of Syracuse in southeaster Sicily. On the northeastern tip of the island, there was the Greek city state of Messina (Messana in Latin), which was controlled by a group of former Italian mercenaries known as the Mamertines. The city came under pressure from Syracuse, yet Carthage intervened and housed a garrison within the settlement. The Mamertines, however, did not seek occupation by either the Carthaginians or Syracuscans, and went to Rome for aid in 264 B.C., offering submission if the Romans were to occupy the city (Connolly, 143). Although Roman foreign policy at this time period was wary of expanding across the straits of Messina due to the need to field a strong navy to protect island possessions, the Romans accepted the submission and sent a small force to Messina. Although the Carthaginian garrison left the city peacefully, the Roman occupation of Messina was the equivalent of declaring war on both Carthage and Syracuse. Thus in 264 B.C. the First Punic War began.

After a year of minor skirmishing on Sicily, the Romans decided to fully commit to the conflict and sent both of the consuls to the island with a larger army in 363 B.C. (Connolly, 144). The Romans decided to deal with the weaker forces of Syracuse before focusing all of their energy on the Carthaginian forces. With their superior forces, the Romans had crushed Syracuse by the following year. The Punic fleet, however, ravaged the Sicilian and Italian coast. The Romans saw the need for a major fleet, and, using a Carthaginian ship that had run aground as a model, built up a significant navy. However, with inferior seamanship the Romans stood no chance to the Carthaginian navy. Thus the Romans engineered a boarding plank nicknamed the raven or corvus. With the corvus, the Romans were able to utilize their superior infantry on sea as well as land. However, the corvus made the Roman ships top-heavy and difficult to steer, leading to massive shipwrecks.

The overall war was at a standstill. The Romans had sent an army to invade Africa, but despite the early success of the Romans the Spartan general Xanthippus, hired by the Carthaginians, decimated the invasion with a powerful combination of phalanxes and war elephants. The Romans, who had suffered the loss of hundreds of warships in the war, constructed one last navy, this time without the corvus, and crushed the surprised Punic navy and its supply ships at the Battle of Aegates Islands in the year 214 B.C. (145). The Carthaginians, battered and broken, signed a treaty that gave Sicily to the Romans and provided for Carthage to pay tribute to Rome. Carthage also lost much of its possessions in Spain as a result of the war and lost Sardinia to the Romans in the aftermath of a mercenary uprising in Carthaginian territory.

With a powerful navy and a dominating position in the central Mediterranean, the Romans increased their influence over the Adriatic and the Illyrian coast. To the north, Celtic tribes attempted to invade Italy in 225 B.C. with an army of 70,000 men (146). However, the Romans were able to easily defeat the Gauls due to their availability of resources for the conflict, killing 40,000 of the Celts with a force of over 100,000 troops (146). In Donald Walter Baronowski’s analysis of the ancient historian Polybius’ report on Roman military capacity in 225 B.C., there may have been as many as 130,800 troops immediately available (including allies) and as many as 540,000 in extreme circumstances. The Romans then decided to secure their northern flank by eradicating the remaining Celts in the Po River Valley, securing the region by 220 B.C. Furthermore, in the time between the first and second Punic Wars Rome secured its dominant position in the central Mediterranean.

The Carthaginians, meanwhile, were recovering and rebuilding. Hamilcar Barca, a legendary general who fought in the First Punic War, had helped suppress the mercenary rebellion, stabilized the Carthaginian economy, and reestablished the Punic position in Spain. When Hamilcar died in battle in 228 B.C., his son Hannibal took over his mantle and the legacy of his grand scheme to attack Rome. One thing that the Carthaginians had struggled with in their Spanish campaigns was the insurgencies of many small tribes that were difficult to suppress. Hannibal decided that he could invade Italy and thus enlist the aid of suppressed Italian states along with the recently defeated Celtic tribes. However, with Roman dominance of the seas the Carthaginians could not to transport such a major invasion force to Italy by sea. Instead, Hannibal decided on a bold and risky invasion through the Alps and into the heart of the Roman Republic.

In 226 B.C., the Romans made an agreement with Carthage on the Ebro River in Spain being the limit of Carthaginian expansion (Starr, 26). Hannibal, however, crossed the river to attack Saguntum, an ally of Rome in Spain. The ultimate result was the declaration of war in March of 218, leading to a long and brutal war. The route that Hannibal took from Italy to Spain in under much contention, yet it is known that he evaded the Roman and hostile Gallic forces attempting to intercept him and arrived in the Po valley amongst friendly Gauls with an army of about 20,000 infantry, 6,000 cavalry, and a very dozen elephants (27). In Michael B. Charles and Peter Rhodan’s ""Magister Elephantorvm": A Reappraisal of Hannibal's Use of Elephants," it is discussed to which species of elephant Hannibal likely utilized (probably a Northern African species that was smaller than Indian elephants) and what tactical purpose they served.

With the need for a quick victory, Hannibal advanced and met an overly eager Roman force at the Trebbia River and destroyed two-thirds of them. Although the official report was that the Romans won the battle in order to avoid upsetting the Roman population (27), many citizens saw the truth and elected the popular Gaius Flaminius Nepos to one of the two consul positions for 217. Flaminius led a force northward, yet was ambushed on the shores of Lake Trasimene, Flaminius killed in battle and his force suffered heavy casualties. Hannibal, lacking the support he was expected from the Etruscans, decided to head further south down the Italian peninsula into Campania in the attempt to get more support to assault Rome. The Romans, now in a state of emergency, appointed Fabius Maximus dictator. Fabius adopted a tactic that became his namesake by harassing any small Carthaginian forces and avoiding full-scale battle. However, Hannibal survived the skirmishes and Fabius was unsuccessful in his attempt to isolate Hannibal’s cavalry and fight his infantry in open ground, a battle scenario favoring the Romans.

The next year, the two consuls, Paullus and Varro, met Hannibal outside the city of Cannae with an army of over 60,000, the largest single army that Rome had ever fielded. Hannibal, with an outnumbered force of about 45,000, developed an ingenious double-envelopment strategy that ultimately surrounded the majority of the Roman force. Only about 10,000 of the Roman soldiers escaped; the rest were slaughtered on the battlefield or taken prisoner. Following this victory, Hannibal decided not to besiege Rome and instead successfully promoted revolt in southern Italy. Many historians, classical and modern, question Hannibal’s decision not to attack. A. D. Fitton Brown discusses many possible explanations for Hannibal’s decision to not attack Rome. Some prominent explanations include Hannibal lacking the willpower or desire to take Rome, as he sought to teach the Romans a lesson rather than destroy them. More grounded in fact is the dispute over whether Hannibal could have logistically taken the city or not. Regardless of why Hannibal did not move on Rome, many historians think that failing to attack the city led to him losing the war.

The Romans attempted to weather the storm by having a small force follow Hannibal while other armies tried to retake rebelling cities in southern Italy and Sicily, including the major settlements of Capua and Syracuse. Roman possessions in Illyria and western Greece also came under pressure from King Phillip V of Macedon, who had allied himself with Hannibal. Although the Romans were on the run in Italy and the Balkans, they were having some success in Spain. A steady stream of reinforcements from Italy had kept the Roman forces there in a good position, and by 210 the rising of Publius Cornelius Scipio, later given the title of Scipio Africanus, who became the commander of Roman forces in Spain and quickly turned the war around. Also, Punic reinforcements en route from Spain led by Hasdrubal Barca were cut off and destroyed in northern Italy; Hannibal received the news when a Roman horseman threw his brother’s head into his camp (34).

By 208 B.C. the Romans, weary from war, hoped to make a direct attack into Africa, yet the most experienced Roman general, Marcellus, was killed in the recaptured Syracuse in 208. Scipio stepped up and led an army of mostly volunteers to Africa, landing in 204. He was able to then secure an armistice which provided, along with a short ceasefire, that Hannibal left Italy. Undefeated in his invasion, Hannibal sailed back to Carthage in 203. In 202 Hannibal led a force to meet Scipio in a climactic battle on the plain of Zama. Scipio led a superior force, including Numidian cavalry, however, and soundly defeated Hannibal. In 201 a treaty ended the Second Punic War. This treaty served to have a similar impact as the Treaty of Versailles did after World War I; after a long war in which there were victories on both sides, one side was forced to pay the price. The brutal treaty imposed on the Carthaginians led to such future treaties being called “Carthaginian peace.”

After its victory in the Punic Wars, Rome ultimately rose from the ashes of one of the most brutal wars of antiquity to rule over much of Europe, Africa, and Asia. Following his defeat, Hannibal attempted to lead Carthage as a statesman after the treaty, yet Rome controlled nearly all of Carthage’s economic and diplomatic activity and Hannibal was eventually disposed. In 183 B.C. Hannibal Barca committed suicide rather than fall into the hands of his Roman pursuers (35). Carthage remained as a type of client state of Rome, and was finally eradicated after a long siege in 146 B.C. The majority of its population was eliminated and the city was leveled; a “Roman” Carthage was built on top of the ruins. Despite the genius of generals such as Hamilcar Barca and his sons Hannibal, Hasdrubal, and Mago and their armies throughout the First and Second Punic Wars and the determined resistance of the Carthaginian people in the final siege for Carthage (the Third Punic War), Carthage was ultimately destroyed. If Hannibal’s reason for not attacking the city of Rome in 216 B.C. hung at all on his respect for his enemy, the Romans showed just the opposite esteem through their elimination of not only the Carthaginian people and empire, but also its culture. The little that we know about Carthaginian culture exists through fragmented archaeology and the biased historical reports of the Romans, which proves, if nothing else, that history is indeed written by the victors.

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