Similarities Between Rome And Carthage

Carthage was once almost the equal of Rome. What happened? How did it fall? How was it almost the equal in power to Rome? What happened to it? Where did its power come from? I will attempt to answer all these questions.

So the war had begun, on both side there is a bit of advantage. The Romans have the advantage of being on the offense giving them a foot hole in Carthage. The Carthaginians also had an advantage. When the Carthaginians realized it was time for war they began preparing for siege. The got an advantage because the Roman army contracted disease during this time so Carthage had enough time to

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

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.

The three Punic Wars was a series of battles fought between Carthage and Rome that lasted almost a century from 264 BC to 149 BC. As Carthage had the leading power of Western Mediterranean and Rome’s control over the peninsula of Italy. However, both of the two states had different intensions over the island of Sicily leading to the battles of the Punic Wars that soon later ended in a total defeat for Carthage. With the desire of controlling the island of Sicily, Carthage would still have the dominance power over the Mediterranean and as for Rome, it would strengthen its land defense policy and expand its Republic.

I do not believe that the Romans viewed the Carthaginians as most similar to themselves. Rome and Carthage differed in many ways including socially, politically, religiously, and militarily, both however were powers to be reckoned with leading up to the Punic Wars. The government of Carthage was nearly identical being composed of a King (Oligarchy), Senate, and power of the people, the one major difference I believe is the fact that Rome was on the rise while Carthage was in some ways an old, or falling apart country. As Polybius stated in a prior reading, the nature of every government goes through three successive periods, one of growth, one of perfection, and one of decay. Carthage was founded nearly 250 years before Rome and had expanded

From historical point of view, the government of Rome and Carthage differed in number of ways; before the start of Punic wars that took place in ancient Carthage, Rome had military groups that were trained to fight on land-based. Citizen could volunteer to join the military and fight as a large joined community. On the other hand, Carthage government had a sea force that includes ships and military personnel. Its government had invested a lot in navy than military that were land-based. Carthage unlike Rome, they could obtain mercenaries through recruitment and also being an empire that was highly commercial, it could hire troops from other counties like Liberia, Spain and even from North Africa.

leaders as Carthage had. Hannibal had the great intuition to hit Rome while Rome was planning to

The first things we can look at about Rome and Carthage is Rome’s citizens and Carthage’s wealth. We can draw conclusions from these and begin to compare both. One of the prominent things about Rome was its “hand-to-hand combat” skills of its soldiers. Rome was not originally a navy, but had to become a naval power to take on Carthage. Before Rome ever faced Hannibal in the second Punic war (B.C.218-201) it faced Carthage in the first Punic war (B.C. 264-241) and had fewer losses than it did in the Second Punic war. We can examine what Carthage’s advantages were, and what Rome’s disadvantages were (Morey, 1901).

Roman Empire was growing at a fast pace, they added more subjects to their wing and the growth made it stronger also in terms of the military. After plundering almost the whole of Italy, the Romans ventured outside of Italy, and they came across Carthage. Carthage was a civilized city that was rich and powerful.

For the second time in almost 4 years, over 350,000 Chicago Public School Students may not be able to go to school because of the CTU Strike that is currently in progress today (The Washington Post). The issue between the Chicago Teachers Union and Chicago Public Schools has not been solved yet due to disagreements about the income received. The Chicago Teachers Union has made offers to school administrations; however, the responses were not in their favor. The union has been in progress of agreeing on a contract “since November 2011, [and the strike that occurred at the time] was the first to hit the Windy City in 25 years” (Liebelson). The issue must have erupted due to a misconception or a realization of problems occurring. Chicago Teachers Union choosing to strike does not affect charter schools since they are not a part of Chicago Public Schools. The issue of school strikes can be fixed by increasing the budgets and providing useful resources to teachers in order to improve the level of education.

After Carthage “captured Sicily” (Mark, 2011), in the interest of commercial expansion, and in the “recovery” (Morey, 1901) of many coastal cities lost prior to Rome, Rome reacted; though they lacked “navy and knowledge” (Mark, 2011) for nautical campaigns. Rome constructed over three hundred ships with “corvus – ramps and gangways” (Mark, 2011) creating foot-solid land for their Roman army-cum-navy soldiers. Since naval battles involve vessel maneuvering versus hand-to-hand combat, the Romans held the advantage – their soldiers excelled in “hand-to-hand” (Morey, 1901) combat. Consequently, the innovative corvus established Rome as the Mediterranean's new naval

While, Carthage didn’t have the love of its people in its decision making it was helpful that their army was under the control of a solid leader. Despite this, Rome had a much more effective army and Carthage was a naval powerhouse. Carthage much better in terms of physical wealth and resources but Rome had a well supported (and much more stable) political systems since they had

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

and taking over their land. Carthage used a governing system similar to that of Rome, however