| Publication |
2014.
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| Summary/Abstract |
The two leading Mediterranean powers in the post-Greek world clashed in three Punic Wars in the first of which Rome, now master of all Italy, overran Sicily, reinvented itself as a naval power and took its armies beyond Europe for the first time to Carthage in Africa
By the mid-3rd century BC, Romans had secured the whole of the Italian peninsula defeating in about 100 years every rival on mainland Italy. First the Latin League dissolved in the Latin War, then the Samnites were subjugated in three Samnite wars, and finally the cities of Magna Grecia submitted to Rome after Pyrrhus of Epirus withdrew (see FORCE May 2014). Barely decades after the last Pyrrhic War, Rome fought outside Italy for the first time. The First Punic War (264-241 BC) was the first of three fought between Carthage and the Roman Republic for supremacy in the western Mediterranean Sea. It was localised on the island of Sicily but Roman legions also landed on African soil. Carthage, located in today's Libya and Tunisia, was the world's leading naval power at that time. These wars were called 'Punic' from the Latin name for Carthaginians - 'Punici' derived from 'Phoenici' - who traced their origins to the Semitic-speaking peoples of North Africa descending from Phoenician traders of modern Lebanon and who spoke the Punic language. The Second Punic War (218-201 BC) is most remembered in military history for Hannibal's great crossing of the Alps with elephants to do what no man did before: attack Rome overland from the north. The Third Punic War (149-146 BC) involved an extended siege of Carthage, culminating in its conquest by Rome, ending the tale of one of the most illustrious military rivalries in history.
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