Differences Between Carthage And Carthage

After the Punic Wars, Rome controlled all of Italy, Sicily, much of Spain and part of Africa, as well as Greece and the eastern Mediterranean world. As you can see, at that time Rome and Carthage had very

Carthage gained her power through the wealth of trade and commere, bringing the northern African colonies and cities of Sicily under control, solidified her dominance in the Mediterranean. Through wealth comes strength and the ability to obtain more wealth by expanding one’s territory, which brought Carthage to desire the Greek cities of Italy also (Morey, 1901). The very cities bordering Rome, leading to the beginning of hostilities between Carthage and Rome.

In 264 B.C. the Romans became committed to their first over-seas conflict, when “Carthage attempted to gain control of the island of Sicily. The prospect of such a powerful neighbor only a few miles offshore from Italy worried the Romans. When Sicilian Greeks asked for Roman

The Punic Wars were a series of conflicts between Rome and Carthage for control of the Mediterranean. They are called the Punic Wars because the word “Punic” is derived from the Roman word for Phoenician, in reference to the Carthaginians’ ancestry. Carthage was founded by settlers from Phoenicia on the fertile land of North Africa. The Phoenicians were known as brave and skillful sailors and merchants. By the third century BC, Carthage became a substantially strong power of the Western Mediterranean. It was considered the richest city in the world. All maritime trade between East and West Mediterranean went through it. Hundreds of ships transported goods from all over the world. The city, built up with tall buildings, had 700 thousand inhabitants. The Greek colonies in Sicily and Southern Italy were the only serious competition to Carthage. There was a continuous struggle between them for the possession of the island for 100 years, since the end of the fifth century BC. Four times the Carthaginians conquered the island. However, they could not take the city of Syracuse.

Carthage had a lot of similarities to Rome, from their government to their economy and even their military might. What probably brought them so close to becoming equals was likely Carthage's economy, allowing it to compete with Rome in terms of quantity over quality in my opinion. Carthage had established an impressive economy, buying and selling things from the west and east, these things were purple, frankincense, linen, gold, silver, tin and iron. Buying and selling all these things not only gave Carthage access to wealth but a very diverse amount of resources as well. This is what I believed allowed it to compete with Rome on equal ground. While it did have a stronger Navy, it wasn't as much as the strength but the quality of their fleets

The three Punic Wars demonstrated the Roman emperors’ power over Rome with laws over land, environment, and conflicts. In The three Punic Wars Carthage and Rome fought for power over Mediterranean Sea. Carthage was lead by hannibal. The first Punic War was in 264 BC when Rome and Carthage wanted power to rule Sicily. The wars started when when Mercenary soldiers surrounded the city of Messena which is now Messina in Sicily and requested aid from Rome and Carthage against Hiero II, the king of Syracuse. Carthage and Rome hadn't always been enemies, they were on friendly terms before the greek king Pyrrhus had entered Italy.

In the early 3rd century B.C., Rome and Carthage were expanding their empires and met at the city of Sicily. At the time the Roman military consisted of well regulated infantry and cavalry, but hardly any naval forces ready for combat. The Carthaginian military was the opposite.

Yet when Carthage took Sicily, Rome responded by building 330 ships to fight for their land, starting the First Punic War. Carthage was defeated by Rome in 241 BCE, and had to give up Sicily. Carthage went to war with Rome again when the Carthaginian general Hannibal attacked the city of Saguntum, Rome’s ally. This was the start of the Second Punic War. Hannibal was defeated at the Battle of Zama, meaning Carthage lost against Rome once more. The Third Punic War began when Carthage refused Rome’s demands to have Carthage dismantled and rebuilt further inland. The Roman general Scipio Aemilianus surrounded Carthage with armed forces for three years until it fell and the Romans burned it to the ground. Around 122 BCE, Julius Caesar decided to re-build Carthage, and five years after his death, the city rose again. Power and importance shifted back to Carthage, until the fall of the

Rome was governed by leading figures in a “constantly changing network of mutually dependent relationships” (Cultures of the West, p. 176). The Romans valued simplicity, and placed a high value on families, or “Familia”, where the men were mostly dominant. They arranged their government so that one group of people could not monopolize over power, and that each senate/assembly could be governed by another, which laid groundwork for the way a lot of governments run today. Republican Rome also gave birth to something much bigger in the scheme of territories during this time, being that the Roman Empire saw that they could simply not make peace with any of their neighbors until they had complete control of the Mediterranean sea. This lead to the Punic wars, which were fought over about 80 years between the Romans and the Carthaginians who lived in North Africa. These wars were fought over three main battles, one in 264 BCE over Sicily, one in 218 over Spain, and the last big battle fought in 149 BCE, which ultimately ended in the complete destruction of Carthage and every Carthaginian, besides some who were sold into slavery (Cultures of the West, p. 182). After the victory of the Carthaginians, Rome recognized the power they had now that they controlled the Mediterranean entirely to themselves. The openness and calmness of the waters lead to easy trade of

In 266 Carthage signed a treaty with Rome agreeing not to interfere with matters north of the River Ebro. This agreement didn't cause any problems to either side at this point as Carthage's Spanish lines were much further south, while Rome was not involved in Spain at all at this point. This implies that Rome felt she had the right to intervene in Carthage's affairs even at a distance, something that was bound to annoy the Carthaginians.

By 148 BC, Rome controlled the Mediterranean Sea and designated this body of water as “Mare Nostrum, or “our sea,” but in 214 BC, at the beginning of the Macedonian Wars, Rome faced several rivals in their seas. In the Western Mediterranean, Rome faced a powerful enemy in Carthage, which it defeated in the Punic Wars from 264 to 146 BC. The successors to Alexander the Great’s Empire dominated the Eastern Mediterranean. After the Macedonian Wars, which spanned four wars from 214 until 148 BC, however, Rome defeated these states and only the Polemic regime in Egypt remained free of Roman control. Roman tactics,

Carthage had two magistrates called suffites who were like the Roman consuls. Carthage had a council of elders called hundred just like the Romans had the senate. Carthage also had trading colonies just as Rome had her colonies around Italy. Rome was rich and Carthage was rich; Rome was rich thanks to the taxes that conquered colonies paid to her. Carthage was rich because of trade between the West and the East that is why Carthage was called the great merchant of the Mediterranean. Even in the end of the Carthage Empire, both Rome and Carthage had similarities. The sons of some of their best soldiers were the leaders of their armies Pablius Scipius

Like Carthage Rome was a developing, powerful city-state keen on controlling the Mediterranean and collecting the wealth associated with that. As the two nations expanded and came into contact more and more tensions began to rise and suspicions turned into hostility in what would be a precursor to the cold war between the Soviet Union and the United States of the 20th century, Rome and Carthage would come to compete with one another for supremacy of the known world.

With the introduction of the hoplite phalanx to the Roman army, came a multitude of wars and long drawn out campaigns that the Romans were involved in throughout the republic period. One such campaign or campaigns that set the Roman republic as the uncontested superpower in the Mediterranean was the Punic Wars. Rome fought three wars against Carthage between 264 and 146 BCE. These wars constituted major events in the history of Rome and the Mediterranean basin (Marcel Le Glay 2009) p. 73. Though these wars were fought for reasons such as competing economics, revenge (most notably the Carthaginian general Hannibal), and a fear that could be related in today’s terms of opposing forces such as (the United States and Soviet Union feared each other during the Cold War) the fact is in the end Rome defeated the Carthaginians, not only were the Carthaginians defeated, but the city of Carthage was demolished and the people massacred or sold into slavery so as not to threaten the Romans ever again. In the fall of the city, in obedience to the Senate’s orders the inhabitants were reduced to slavery or forced to emigrate, the town was burnt and soil was

Carthaginians were wealthy and from the North Africans city that was founded by Phoenician’s they had more power, military, and naval experience than the Romans (Backman, Cultures of the West, p.184). Because Carthaginians were trying to expand into Sicily which held just one of Rome’s greatest grain producing cities this unsettled the Romans, who feared being cut off from a great food source (Backman, Cultures of the West, p.184). Though they tried a workable solution of sharing control of the Mediterranean this was not to be. This inability to work together was one of the reasons for the start of the Punic wars, a series of three different wars (Jones, Rome, Podcast 1). In the bloody 3rd war of the Punic wars Rome defeated the Carthaginians (Jones, Rome, Podcast 1). After the Punic wars the Romans had found they had accumulated vast amounts of wealth and land. This put them in an awkward position, because they had no plan in place for this and did not know what to do with it (Backman, Cultures of the West, p.187). This huge wealth also created a problem for Rome, one of greed and corruption which began to take control over Rome (Backman, Cultures of the West, p.187). Senators who amassed wealth begun to become lazy and accustomed to a life of leisure, also the more wealth they got the more they wanted (Jones, Rome, Podcast 1). The next problem for Rome was these greedy senators not only wanted the wealth they wanted power too