Causes and Effects of the Punic Wars

The Punic Wars were an integral part of the chain of events that brought the Roman Empire to a place of dominance in the Western Mediterranean and reduced Carthage(which prior to the Wars enjoyed a leading position(to little more than rubble. It must be acknowledged, however, that the Romans were a warring people to begin with, as were the Carthaginians. It was virtually inevitable that these two rising powers would eventually clash, since both had powerful military forces and both were located in the Mediterranean. Professor Sir Michael Howard stated in his David Davies Memorial Institute Lecture, "Weapons and Peace," in January 1983: "The causes of war are as diverse as those of human conflict itself, but one factor common to almost all wars has been on the one side, or both, a cultural predisposition for war" (Bagnall 7). Sir Howard pointed out that this predisposition has been "often overlooked" but that in such warring cultures, "the settling of contentious issues by armed conflict is regarded as natural, inevitable and right" (Bagnall 7).

In the Punic Wars, "two largely incompatible civilisations confronted one another in a rivalry that quickly became a to-the-death fight for supremacy" (Bagnall 7). These three wars, which lasted for more than 100 years altogether, were fought between the Indo-Germanic race comprised of Greeks and Romans in Rome, and the Semitic race comprised of Jews and Arabs in Carthage; "one side had a genius of order and legisla

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he other's growing power, now that the Roman conquest of southern Italy had brought their empires face to face" (11). The most obvious cause of the Second Punic War was the will of the Carthaginian military commander: "Hannibal's determination to avenge the loss of Sicily and his father's humiliation" (Bagnall 88). There was undoubtedly more to the situation than that, including the dispute over Sardinia, which the Romans tried to claim had been "ceded to them following the First Punic War" (Bagnall 88). The Third Punic War "can be attributed to the loss of Scipio Africanus' moderating influence when he fell victim to political in-fighting, and his replacement by Cato with his advocacy of vigorous confrontation with Carthage" (Bagnall 88). Although the Third Punic War lasted from 149 B.C. to 146 B.C., it consisted mainly of the Battle of Carthage in 149 B.C., which was most likely the result of Cato's ending all his speeches with the declaration that "Carthage must be destroyed!" ("Third"). The Battle of Carthage resulted in a Roman victory, and the city was "razed, cursed, and ploughed over" ("Third"). It must also be pointed out that the Third Punic War was an example of a strategic preemptive strike. Davi

Category: History - C