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Rome still exists as the capital of Italy; the ruins of Carthage lie 16 kilometres (10 mi) east of Tunis on the North African coast. [84] A formal peace treaty was signed by Ugo Vetere and Chedli Klibi, the mayors of Rome and the modern city of Carthage, respectively, on 5 February 1985; 2,131 years after the war ended. [85]
The main source for most aspects of the Punic Wars [note 1] is the historian Polybius (c. 200 – c. 118 BC), a Greek sent to Rome in 167 BC as a hostage. [2] His works include a now-lost manual on military tactics, [3] but he is best known for The Histories, written sometime after 146 BC.
Carthage had paid off its indemnity and was prospering economically, but was no military threat to Rome. [256] [257] Elements in the Roman Senate had long wished to destroy Carthage and with the breach of the treaty as a casus belli, war was declared in 149 BC. [255]
Like Cato, he ended all his speeches with the same phrase, "Carthage must be destroyed" (Carthago delenda est). [4] [5] [6] Cato finally won the debate after Carthage had attacked Massinissa, which gave a casus belli to Rome since the peace treaty of 201 BC prevented Carthage from declaring war without Rome's assent.
[117] [118] [119] Carthage's border war with Rome's ally Numidia, though initiated by the latter, nonetheless provided the pretext for Rome to declare war. The Third Punic War was a much smaller and shorter engagement than its predecessors, primarily consisting of a single main action, the Battle of Carthage .
At the end of the Third Punic War, the Romans laid siege to Carthage. When they took the city, they killed most of the inhabitants, sold the rest into slavery, and destroyed the entire city. There is no ancient evidence for modern accounts that the Romans sowed the ground with salt. [2]
In 264 BC the states of Carthage and Rome went to war, starting the First Punic War. [22] Carthage was a well-established maritime power in the Western Mediterranean; Rome had recently unified mainland Italy south of the Arno River under its control.
The Roman expansion in Italy covers a series of conflicts in which Rome grew from being a small Italian city-state to be the ruler of the Italian region.Roman tradition attributes to the Roman kings the first war against the Sabines and the first conquests around the Alban Hills and down to the coast of Latium.