Roman Civilization

CMS 206 /History 206

Rome in the 3rd Century B.C.E.

In the 3rd century bce, Rome began to expand its influence beyond peninsular Italy.

After the defeat of the Samnites, the very southern toe of Italy, and Sicily were now within reach of Roman influence and conflict with Roman armies.
Taras (or Tarentum), which at the end of the fourth century was larger than Rome, objected to the Roman practice of sending fleets against pirates to aid Thurians, neighbors of Tarentum who had appealed to Rome for help.
The Tarentines called in a Greek mercenary general named Pyrrhus, who brought along a phalanx of 20,000 men and Indian war-elephants. Initially, Pyrrhus kicked Roman butt (the equites couldn't deal with the elephants) and Rome's new Samnite allies joined his cause.
Pyrrhus' victories cost him thousands of men, however (hence pyrric victories) and eventually he retreated into Sicily and finally back to Greece. By 272, Tarentum had become a Roman socius. Rome effectively controlled the Italian peninsula.
Rome's infantry was revealed to be the most effective fighting machine in the Mediterranean. Her cavalry, was weak, however, and as yet she had no navy.

Carthage, which lay 130 miles across the sea from Sicily, which lay 14 miles across the sea from Southern Italy, had been for centuries the dominant power in the western Mediterranean. Rome would fight 3 wars (The First, Second and Third Punic Wars) with Carthage between 264 and 146.
The First Punic War began much like the war with Pyrrhus. Messana appealed to Carthage to help them supress an uprising. Southern Italians got very nervous at the prospect of Punic armies across the the straits. Then Messana changed its mind and appealed to Rome for help. Then Carthage got nervous. The war started in 264 and the first thing that the Romans noticed was that Carthage had a very good navy and they had none at all. So, starting in 260 B.C.E., the Romans built a fleet of 140 ships, modelled on a captured Punic warship, and introducing corvi (ravens), grappling devices which locked two ships together and permitted the Roman sailors (who only recently had been soldiers) to fight like they were on land.
During the course of the war, Rome and Carthage engaged in the greatest sea battles the Mediterranean ever saw; the Romans twice lost their entire fleet in storms and had to rebuild; the Romans discovered that they did not have the capacity or tactics to successfully invade North Africa, but they did eventually take Sicily. The Romans also began to notice that some of her generals (consules were automatically generals) were not so hot and that their system of military command left something to be desired.
The war ended in 241. Carthage recognized Rome's control of Sicily (thus making it possible for Romans to think of possessing overseas provinces) and agreed to pay a huge indemnity over the course of the next 10 years, which the Romans hoped would cripple their Punic rivals economically. Shortly after the end of the FPW, when Carthage faced an internal rebellion, Rome seized control of Sardinia and Corsica as well, and demanded a further indemnity from the Carthginians.
Carthage, however, simply transferred its operations from Sicily to Spain and by 220 BCE, had regained its economic dominance of the western Mediterranean. The Carthage expansion into Spain was led by the punic general Hamilcar Barca, who had played an important role in the FPW and had come to despise Rome. Legend had it that he made his son, Hannibal, swear never to make peace with Rome. Rome, meanwhile, was nervous as a cat over punic expansion in Spain.
In 218, again in a pretext of coming to the aid of a two-bit city (Sagunta), Rome and Carthage were at war again (The Second Punic War). Rome had planned to invade Spain, so were shocked to wake up one early morning in the war to discover that Hannibal had crossed the Alps with 40,000 infantry and cavalry (26,000 survived the crossing) and 37 elephants (most of the elephants died). The Romans sent an army of 40,000 to face Hannibal. He crushed them. They sent a second which he crushed as well.
Hannibal was able to rage through the Italian countryside and apparently defeat any army the Romans sent against him (going as far as the walls of Rome at one point). He did not, however, have siege equipment, or secure supply lines back to Spain (he was in a position not unlike Pyrrhus).
Fortunately for Rome, Fabius Maximus, a competent general, finally come to power (appointed dictator twice) and he adopted "fabian" or what we would call tactics of guerrila resistance to Hannibal. Annoyed at the length of time Fabius was taking, Romans elected consuls who promised a direct confrontation with Hannibal and proceeded to lose the largest Roman army ever put into battle. Fabius was called back. Hannibal's army would remain in Italy until 204 BCE (althoug it had ceased to do much damage, hiding out in the mountains in southern Italy from 208 to 204). Although a few cities in the north and far south and Sicily defected from Rome, the overwhelming number of allied and Latin rights cities remained loyal to Rome, despite Hannibal's presence on the Italian peninsua.
Meanwhile, the Romans sent armies against Hannibals brother (Hasdrubal)in Spain led by Scipio and by 206 had driven punic forces from Spain. In 205, Scipio won permission to invade North Africa, and Hannibal, in 204 finally returned to Carthage after 15 years in Italy. In 202 Scipio leading Roman forces finally met and defeated Hannibal's punic armies at a town called Zama, 75 miles from Carthage.
Rome won Spain, gave all of Carthage's western lands to Numidia (who had supported Rome), exacted a huge indemnity, reduced the size of the punic fleet to 10, and made Carthage agree never to start awar without Rome's permission.

causes of the Punic and Macedonian wars / an historical atlas of the 2nd Punic War

Essay on First Punic War / Essays on 2nd Punic War: #1, #2, #3

Early Roman History and Culture

The Second Century, B.C.E.

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