Punic Wars

Examples of Punic Wars in the following topics:

• Republican Wars and Conquest

  • The First Punic War began in 264 BCE when Rome and Carthage became interested in using settlements within Sicily to solve their own internal conflicts.
  • The war saw land battles in Sicily early on, but focus soon shifted to naval battles around Sicily and Africa.Before the First Punic War there was no Roman navy to speak of.
  • Continuing distrust led to the renewal of hostilities in the Second Punic War when Carthaginian commander Hannibal attacked a Spanish town with diplomatic ties to Rome in 218 BCE.
  • Carthage never managed to recover after the Second Punic War and the Third Punic War that followed was in reality a simple punitive mission to raze the city of Carthage to the ground.
  • Depiction of Hannibal and his army crossing the Alps during the Second Punic War.

• Ancient Carthage

  • Ancient Carthage was almost constantly at war with the Greeks or the Romans.
  • One set of wars was called the Punic Wars.
  • The main cause of the Punic Wars was the conflict of interest between the existing Carthaginian Empire and the expanding Roman Republic.
  • At the start of the first Punic War, Carthage was the dominant power of the Western Mediterranean, with an extensive maritime empire.
  • It was during the Second Punic War that the Carthaginian leader Hannibal launched his famous overland attack on Rome.

• The Phoenicians

  • It was finally destroyed by Rome in 146 BC, at the end of the Punic Wars.

• The Founding of Rome

  • Romulus and Remus were purported to be sons of Rhea Silvia and Mars, the god of war.
  • But Virgil took the disconnected tales of Aeneas’s wanderings and his vague association with the foundation of Rome and fashioned it into a compelling foundation myth or national epic that tied Rome to the legends of Troy, explained the Punic Wars, glorified traditional Roman virtues, and legitimized the Julio-Claudian dynasty as descendants of the founders, heroes, and gods of Rome and Troy.
  • Virgil wrote the Aeneid during a time of major political and social change in Rome, with the fall of the republic and the Final War of the Roman Republic tearing through society and causing many to question Rome’s inherent greatness.
  • Aeneas eventually won the war and killed Turnus, which granted the Trojans the right to stay and to assimilate with the local peoples.

• Renaissance Writers

  • He wrote poetry in Latin, notably the Punic War epic Africa, but is today remembered for his works in the Italian vernacular, especially the Canzoniere, a collection of love sonnets dedicated to his unrequited love Laura.

• The Guatemalan Civil War

• The Bosnian War

• The Syrian Civil War

• The Opium Wars

• Total War