Roman History

264 to 146 BCE – The First Punic War to the end of the Third Punic War

The Second Punic War, 218 to 201 BCE

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Though neither side had actively sought war, the conditions for war between Rome and Carthage were apparent. The simplistic view, favored by ancient Roman scholars is that the Barcis family of Carthage (the family of Hamilcar and Hannibal) sought revenge and that their bitter desire for revenge is what precipitated war. The conditions for war existed in thee fear that these two western powers had in regards to one and other. The Second Punic War began over a dispute involving Saguntum, a city in Spain. Saguntum claimed that it had fides with Rome, despite being within the Carthaginian realm of influence. Hannibal feared that Rome might use Saguntum liked they has used to the Mamertines to secure a favourable position in the First Punic War. In 219 Hannibal besieged Saguntum. Upon the fall of Saguntum, Rome issued an ultimatum, surrender Hannibal or face war. The Carthaginian Senate, who had supported Hannibal’s actions could not afford to show weakness against the Romans yet again, declined Rome’s offer. On the Roman side, war was encouraged by ambitious aristocrats and those politicians who feared that Carthage might form an alliance with the tribes in Southern Gaul in the future to destroy Rome. In 218, the Second Punic War had begun.

Hannibal, preparation for war, faced a dilemma. He had under his command a well trained army, but lacked a sufficiently large navy to support it. Thus his strategy would have to rely entirely on a land campaign. In order to defeat Rome, Hannibal knew that he would have to cut the essence of Rome’s strength, her vast reserves of manpower. Rome potentially had six to seven times the manpower of Carthage. In order to cut Rome’s manpower supplies, the Italian alliances would have to be broken up, and the only way to do that was to campaign in the Italian Peninsula. In May of 218 BCE, Hannibal set out from New Carthage, in Spain, on a long march north towards Italy. It is along this march that Hannibal made his famous trek across the Alps. To cross the Alps in ancient times with the forces that Hannibal possessed would have been an amazing feat during the summer; Hannibal crossed the Alps in the dead of winter. Along the trek Hannibal lost 20 000 of his 30 000 infantry, 6000 of 9000 cavalry and all of his 37 war elephants. However, southern Gaulish tribes that were already at war with Rome joined his army and made up for the lost men.

Between 218 and 216 BCE, Hannibal defeated the Romans in three separate battles. These battles constitute the Battle at the Trebia (218 BCE), the Battle of Lake Treasieme (217 BCE) and the Battle of Cannae (216 BCE). For Hannibal the greatest success was the battle of Cannae. Over-confident with their 80 000 strong force, the Romans marched against Hannibal and engaged him near a small town called Cannae. This battle would mark one of the largest defeats in Roman history. During the battle Hannibal was able to maneuver his forces such so that they surrounded the Roman army. Only 15 000 Romans survived the battle. Things were looking rather bright for the Carthaginians. Between 216 and 212 BCE the Roman allies began to waver and some began to defect to the Carthaginians. Prior to Cannae the Romans had given Fabius Maximus the office of dictator. In order to combat Hannibal’s superior forces Fabius opted for a strategy of attrition. The strategy was aimed at denying Hannibal any decisive victories while protecting the Italian Alliances. However, during the elections of 217 BCE, popular speakers declared that to win Rome must bring her full force to bear against Hannibal and thus Fabius’s dictatorship was not renewed. After the defeat at Cannae, the Romans returned to the Fabian strategy, and began to concentrate on retaking cities that had fallen to Hannibal and winning loyalty from their Italian allies.

In 215 BCE Philip V, King of Macedonia, allied himself with Hannibal in a bid to seize control of Roman dominated Illyria. The Romans, however, were able to form a collation of Greek states to check Philip’s ambitions. In 205 BCE, the Romans made peace with Philip V and the first Macedonian war came to a close.

Things began to turn to Rome’s favour when the future Scipio Africanus took control of the Roman army in Spain. In 209 BCE, Scipio marched through Spain and captured New Carthage. Hasdrubal, who had been left to guard after Hannibal’s departure, left Spain with his army to join up with Hannibal in Italy. By 206 BCE, Scipio has managed to bring all of Carthaginian Spain under Roman control. In 207 BCE, Hasdrubal met a Roman army at Metaurus River. In the ensuing battle his army was destroyed and he was killed. Had Hasdrubal been able to link up with Hannibal and replenish Hannibal’s wavering reserves, Hannibal might have been able to revitalize his war against Rome in the Italian Pennisula.

In 206 BCE, Scipio returned to Rome and was elected to the consulship. In 204 BCE, he landed his army at Utica, within Carthaginian Africa. In order to counter Scipio, the Carthaginian Senate recalled Hannibal from Italy. The battle between these two military giants took place at Naraggara, though the Battle is often incorrectly referred to as the battle of Zama. Hannibal, weak in cavalry hoped that his war elephants would be able to break the Roman forces. This was an unsuccessful as Scipio employed smaller divisions that were able to break to allow the elephants to harmlessly pass by, the elephants crashed in Hannibal’s already weak cavalry essentially ending the battle. The Carthaginian army was destroyed, but Hannibal was able to escape.

Hannibal himself convinced the Carthaginian Senate that it was time to seek peace terms. In 201 BCE Carthage was compelled to surrender all territory outside of Africa, recognize the independence of Numdia, agree not to wage war without the approval of Rome, reduce her fleet to ten light triremes and pay an indemnity of 10 000 talents over 50 years. With this peace accord, the power of Carthage to challenge Rome in the west was forever broken. However, certain stipulations of this peace agreement would lead to the third and final Punic war in 149 BCE. After the war, Hannibal was elected to power in 196 BCE. Demonstrating vast administration skills, Hannibal was able to offer Rome the rest of war payments in 191 BCE, only ten years after the end of the Second Punic War. Though Rome, refused the offer. Under Hannibal’s leadership Carthage was able to reassert herself as the commercial and industrial centre of the Mediterranean. This did not last very long, as Rome soon demanded that Hannibal be surrendered as a war criminal. To save himself, Hannibal fled to the East, where he would soon clash once more with Rome.

Rome in the East and West

Not five years after the end of the First Macedonian War, and only a year after the end of the Second Punic War, Philip V once again attempted to assert himself in the East. To strengthen his position on the Adriatic coast, Philip acquired some Illyrian territory. Philip then entered into a deal with the Pirates operating in the Aetolian region. This agreement gave him naval supremacy in the East. Philip went too far in 201 BCE when he attacked Rome’s ally Rhodes. The last thing Philip had wanted through his aggressive practices was another war with Rome. Though it is unknown, he probably assumed that Rome was far too exhausted from the Second Punic War to engage him in the East.

In the last Macedonian War Rome had made poor use of her Greek allies, and had alienated them by letting Philip off with a rather minor punishments. The Second Macedonian War was a chance for Rome to reassert herself with the Greece. In 198 BCE, the newly elected consul Titus Flaminius arrived in Greece to do just that, repair Rome’s tarnished image. Flaminius accomplished this by proclaiming that the Roman’s were fighting for freedom and self-determination for all the Greeks. At the battle of Cynocephalae in 197 BCE Rome defeated Philip’s only army, forcing him to agree to peace terms. Philip, in the peace agreement, was forced to recognize the freedom and independence of all the Greek states, pay an indemnity of 1000 talents and reduce his army to 5000 men. At the offset of this peace Flaminius was an instance hero in Greece, if not a God. Flaminius’s concerns about Greek freedom were purely strategic; neither he nor Rome had any romantic ideas about the freedom of the Greek states. Flaminius’s plan was to keep the wealth and manpower of Greece out of the hands of any power but Rome.

Peace in the East did not last long. Antiochus III, during the Second Punic War and the Second Macedonian War had begun the process of reconstituting the Seleucid Empire in the East. These actions terrified Rome as they threatened not only the balance of power in the region, but Rome’s allies Perganum and Rhodes. Not only had Antiochus begun to annex Egyptian territory in Phoenicia, but also he had welcomed Rome’s greatest nemesis to his court, Hannibal. Hannibal told Antiochus, who knew he would eventually have to face Rome, that the only way to defeat Rome would be through an alliance of Macedon, Egypt and the Seleucid Empire. Antiochus rebuffed Hannibal, when Hannibal suggested that he might have to make concessions to the former two powers in order to count on their support.

Within Greece, the Aetolians had become rather anti Roman, as Rome, at the end of the Second Macedonian War had not dismantled Philip’s kingdom as they had requested. In 192 BCE, the Aetolians invited Antiochus III to come to Greece as liberators. This action trigger war with Rome, and at a subsequent battle at Thermopylae, Antiochus was defeated. At a second battle at Magnesia, in Perganum, the Romans inflicted another defeat on Antiochus ending the war. At the peace treaty of Apamea, Antiochus was forced to relinquish all of his possessions in Asia Minor and pay an indemnity of 15 000 talents. In 183 BCE, Flaminius had finally cornered Hannibal and the great general to avoid capture took poison and ended his life.

A third Macedonian war began in 171 BCE, when Philip’s son Perseus attempted revive Macedonian power in the East. The war did not last long, and the Romans in 168 BCE, at Pydna, defeated Perseus. At the end of the war Rome attempted something rather innovative. They abolished the monarchy and broke the state into four separate republics. This experiment to break Macedonian power forever was futile, as in two decades Macedon had been reunified and launched the fourth and final Macedonian War. The war did not last long, when Macedon was defeated in 148 BCE the territory was complied into a Roman Province.

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Though Rome had driven Carthage from Spain and annexed the territory at the end of the Second Punic War, governing the territory proved to be a much greater dilemma for the Roman state. Spain lacked the developed society that was present in the East, thus controlling the area through intermediary states, as was Rome’s strategy in the East, was impossible. What Spain lacked in development it made up with a rich diverse set of easily obtainable minerals. In 198 BCE, Cato the Elder was sent to the province of nearer Spain to restore order. With an army of 50 000 men he stamped out the rebellious tribes and began the difficult task of stabilizing the region.

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