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The Punic Wars were a series of wars between 264 and 146 BC fought between the Roman Republic and the Carthaginian Empire.Three wars took place, on both land and sea, across the western Mediterranean region and involved a total of forty-three years of warfare.
For the vast majority of the period of its existence, the Polybian levy was at war. This led to great strains on Roman and Italian manpower, but forged a superb fighting machine. During the Second Punic War, fully two-thirds of Roman iuniores were under arms continuously. In the period after the defeat of Carthage in 201 BC, the army was ...
In 256 BC, during the First Punic War with the Roman Republic, the Roman Consul Marcus Atilius Regulus decisively defeated the Carthaginian navy at the Battle of Cape Ecnomus, enabling him to land a Roman army in Africa. Prior to this point in the war, most ground fighting had been on Sicily, now the Roman armies threatened Carthage itself.
This conquest started with the Roman acquisition of the former Carthaginian territories in southern Hispania and along the east coast as a result of defeating the Carthaginians (206 BC) during the Second Punic War (218–201 BC), after which the Carthaginian forces left the peninsula.
The Second Punic War (218 to 201 BC) was the second of three wars fought between Carthage and Rome, the two main powers of the western Mediterranean in the 3rd century BC. For 17 years the two states struggled for supremacy, primarily in Italy and Iberia, but also on the islands of Sicily and Sardinia and, towards the end of the war, in North Africa.
[4] [5] He accompanied his patron and friend, [6] the Roman general Scipio Aemilianus, in North Africa during the Third Punic War; [7] this causes the normally reliable Polybius to recount Scipio's actions in a favourable light. [8] [9] [10] In addition, significant portions of The Histories ' account of the Third Punic War have been lost. [8] [11]
Before the First Punic War in 264 BC there was no Roman navy to speak of, as all previous Roman wars had been fought on land in Italy. The new war in Sicily against Carthage, a great naval power, [93] forced Rome to quickly build a fleet and train sailors. [94]
The siege of Carthage was the main engagement of the Third Punic War fought between Carthage and Rome. It consisted of the nearly three-year siege of the Carthaginian capital, Carthage (a little northeast of Tunis). In 149 BC, a large Roman army landed at Utica in North Africa.