The Punic Wars
Three wars between Rome and Carthage (264-241, 218-201, 149-146 BCE) that turned an Italian land power into a naval and overseas one. Rome acquired Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica and Spain, built a fleet essentially from nothing, survived Hannibal's invasion of Italy, and finally destroyed Carthage in 146 BCE. This is the point at which the Mediterranean stops being a contested space and starts becoming Roman interior water. Casualty figures and fleet sizes reported by Polybius and later authors are large and not independently verifiable.
Historical — it happened, and the record is settled.
Subjects
- Carthage · city · Tunisia
- Rome · city · Italy
- The Mediterranean Sea (Mare Nostrum) · geographic_feature · Mediterranean basin
- The Roman Legion · military_formation · Frontier provinces, principally Rhine, Danube, Britain, Syria, North Africa · not located
Evidence
Partly verified — Core facts are sourced; some optional detail is deliberately absent. This is the standing of the weakest source, not an average.
Polybius, The Histories
A Greek hostage in Rome writing to explain how Rome conquered the Mediterranean in fifty-three years, Polybius supplies the main narrative of the first two Punic Wars and the classic analysis of the Roman constitution as a mixed regime. He is a near-contemporary but a partisan of his Roman patrons, and his fleet and casualty numbers are not independently checkable.
Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press (trans. W. R. Paton, rev. F. W. Walbank & C. Habicht) · written c. 150s-120s BCE; Loeb revision 2010-2012 · Partly verified
Polybius, Historiae, Books 1-6 and 38-39 (Loeb Classical Library 128, 137, 138, 159, 160, 161); Book 6 on the Roman constitution, Books 1-3 on the Punic Wars
Archaeological Site of Carthage (World Heritage inscription)
The inscribed property covers the Punic and Roman city on the Gulf of Tunis, including the Byrsa hill, the Antonine baths, the circular military harbour and the tophet, documenting both the Punic city destroyed in 146 BCE and the Roman colonia rebuilt on the same ground.
UNESCO World Heritage Centre · inscribed 1979 · Partly verified
UNESCO World Heritage List ref. 37, 'Archaeological Site of Carthage'; https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/37/
Recorded on Carthage
- Traditional foundation of the Roman Republic
- Construction of the Via Appia begins
- The Punic Wars
- The Augustan settlement: Octavian becomes Augustus
- Battle of Actium
- Assassination of Julius Caesar
- Caesar crosses the Rubicon
- Inauguration of the Flavian Amphitheatre
- The empire reaches its greatest territorial extent
- Construction of Hadrian's Wall begins
- The Antonine Constitution (Constitutio Antoniniana)
- Dedication of Constantinople
- Administrative division of the empire on the death of Theodosius I
- Alaric's Goths sack Rome
- Odoacer deposes Romulus Augustulus - the contested 'fall' of the Western Roman Empire
Related
Related because they share a subject in the Atlas — never because the text looks similar.
- Odoacer deposes Romulus Augustulus - the contested 'fall' of the Western Roman Empire · 0476-09-04
- Alaric's Goths sack Rome · 0410-08-24
- Administrative division of the empire on the death of Theodosius I · 0395
- Dedication of Constantinople · 0330-05-11
- The Antonine Constitution (Constitutio Antoniniana) · 0212
- Construction of Hadrian's Wall begins · 0122
- The empire reaches its greatest territorial extent · 0117
- Inauguration of the Flavian Amphitheatre · 0080