The Punic Wars

The Punic Wars
By Rachel Donka
4/5/2010

The Punic wars were a series of bloody wars in which Rome and Carthage sought to conquer each other. They started with fighting over Sicily, and ended with the burning of Carthage. Although Carthage’s brave general Hannibal was strong and a tactical genius, he was no match for the bloody fighting Rome played them.
The first Punic war began in 264 BC when both Rome and Carthage wanted to control the barbaric Sicily. The two strong armies fought many battles on land, but neither country succeeded to conquer Sicily. So, Rome’s and Carthage’s naval forces began fighting. Rome’s ships were smaller, but much more maneuverable, and this gave them the advantage. However, Carthage believed that because their ships were larger and stronger, they had more power. The problem for Carthage was that the roman ships could swerve in and out of Cartage’s ships and light them on fire. In 241 BC, after 23 years of fighting, Rome conquered Sicily and drove Carthage’s army out. Rome then forced Carthage to pay a vast tribute to them.
The second Punic war commenced in 218 BC when a general from Carthage, Hannibal, crossed the Swiss Alps with hundreds of elephants in attempt to conquer Rome. Hannibal swept south winning every battle he fought, until he reached the outskirts of Rome. Their Hannibal found an angry army that was about to slaughter his men. Hannibal sent his elephants running toward the Romans, but the Romans made so much noise that the elephants stampeded backwards and crushed Hannibal’s own troops. Hannibal was forced to leave Italy in 201 BC after failing to do what he had been working towards during the 17 years of war, conquer Italy.
The third Punic war initiated in 149 BC when Rome decided to crush Carthage once and for all. Scipio, a Roman general who was the rival of Hannibal, set out with Rome’s vast army to conquer Carthage. Scipio sailed all of his men across the Mediterranean sea and laid siege to Carthage. No food or water could get in the city. Carthage would have fought back, but Hannibal had wasted Carthage’s army on a different campaign. Rome kept demanding that the nobles either surrender, or fight, and the nobles chose to fight. Although there were no real weapons in Carthage, the men made the most of what they had. Still, Carthage’s nobles hardly even impacted the sea of Roman soldiers, except for holding off Rome’s initial attack. In 146 BC, just three years after Rome set out to conquer Carthage, the city was burned to the ground and Rome sailed home triumphantly.
Rome was a very powerful empire, and it could not have anything stand in its way. Rome won all three Punic wars, and succeeded in crushing Carthage and its empire. Rome did not like competition for trading or anything else, and whoever stood in the Romans way was sure to be mashed into oblivion by the prevailing Roman supremacy.