"Rome Wasn't Built in a Day"- The Punic Wars

“Rome wasn’t built in a Day” 
(Great Things take time)

 - The Punic Wars -

  By Suryatej Vakkalanka

The Phoenician sea-traders were known for trading overseas, and later settled at Tyre and Carthage. Starting in 600 B.C., Rome grew and prospered, and later took over Tyre. The Phoenicians permanently moved to Carthage, and called themselves the Carthaginians. The Carthaginians were the Roman’s sworn enemies. While the Carthaginians were taking over new colonies, the Romans began to look for ways to eliminate Carthage. Soon, the two powers started to fight for power of the Mediterranean Sea, which led to the First Punic War.

“The incident that sparked the fighting took place in Sicily...”, when ‘King Hiero II of Syracuse’ fought against ‘the Mamertines of Messina’. At first the Mamertines called the Carthaginians for help, but later regretted it and called the Romans for help. Rome thought this was the perfect opportunity to declare war because Carthage was trying to control Sicily, which was against their peace treaty. The First Punic War, which lasted from 264 to 241 B.C., was located at the Mediterranean Sea. Because the Romans did not have a navy, they copied Carthage’s quinquereme, with an additional corvus. With the corvus removed, the Romans won.  

    While Rome was continuing its expansion into farther lands, Hamilcar decided to declare war with Rome, via Spain. He took his sons Hasdrubal and Hannibal with him, who hated Rome as much as he did. After Hamilcar drowned in an accident, Hasdrubal led the army for sometime, but Hannibal took over shortly at 221 B.C.. He was known to be loyal to his men at all times, and according to Livy “he was the first one to enter battle and the last one to leave it”. To evoke the Romans that he wanted battle, he attacked Saguntum, a city in Spain that was a Roman ally. As an element of surprise, Hannibal decided to cross the Alps to reach Italy. Unluckily, one of Hannibal’s calculations went wrong and they ended up crossing the Alps in the winter. After all the harsh conditions, Hannibal finally made it to Italy, and “Even though he had lost half his troops and many of his elephants, Hannibal’s crossing was a victory against impossible odds.”

    For 15 years, Hannibal kicked butt on the Romans with his inventive hit-and-run method. One of the major battles he won was the ‘Battle of Cannae’, where the Romans suffered lots of losses. The Romans couldn’t do much because they sent all their forces to Spain and North Africa. Hannibal never actually attacked Rome, because Carthage refused to send reinforcements. In addition, the peoples Rome conquered refused to help him, too afraid to fight against the Mighty Romans. Rome finally found a leader to make up for its losses, whose name was Scipio. Scipio had all the characteristics of Hannibal, and studied him to learn his weaknesses. Then, Scipio sailed to north Africa and threatened to destroy Carthage. In desperation, the Carthaginians called Hannibal back home. Hannibal came back to defend his country, but ultimately lost the ‘Battle of Zama’. “Carthage was compelled to give up all her interests in Spain and the Mediterranean”. Even after this major restriction Rome wanted revenge, which led to the Carthaginians giving up 300 children of nobles. After Rome forced Carthage to move inland, Carthage had enough and refused. This made Rome declare war against Carthage. The Carthaginians “turned every open space into a weapon workshop”. For three years, Carthage held up against the mighty force of Rome. The city finally fell in 146 B.C., when it was burned to the ground and the survivors were sold to slavery.