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Main article: Punic
Wars
In the 3rd century BC Rome had to face a new and formidable opponent:Carthage.
Carthage was a rich, flourishing Phoenician city-state that intended to dominate
the Mediterranean area. The two cities were allies in the times of Pyrrhus, who
was a menace to both, but with Rome's hegemony in mainland Italy and the
Carthaginian thalassocracy,
these cities became the two major powers in the Western Mediterranean – a signal
of the imminent war.
The First
Punic War war begun in 264 BC,
when the city of Messana asked
for Carthage's help in dealing with Hiero
II of Syracuse. After the Carthaginian intercession, Messana asked Rome to
expel the Carthaginians. Rome entered this war because Syracuse and Messana were
too close of the newly conquered Greek cities of Southern Italy and Carthage was
now able to make an offensive through Roman territory; along with this, Rome
could extend its domain over Sicily.[40]
Although the Romans had experience in land battles, to defeat this new enemy,
naval battles were necessary. Carthage was a maritime power, and the Roman lack
of ships and naval experience would make the path to the victory a long and
difficult one for the Roman
Republic. Despite this, after more than 20 years of war, Rome defeated
Carthage and a peace treaty was signed. Among the reasons for the Second
Punic War[41] was
the subsequent war reparations Carthage acquiesced to at the end of the First
Punic War.[42]
The Second Punic War is famous for its brilliant generals: on the Punic side Hannibal and Hasdrubal;
on the Roman, Marcus
Claudius Marcellus,Quintus
Fabius Maximus and Publius
Cornelius Scipio. Rome fought this war simultaneously with the First
Macedonian War.
The outbreak of the war was the audacious invasion of Italy led by Hannibal, son
of Hamilcar
Barca, the Carthaginian general who was in charge of Sicily in the First
Punic War. Hannibal rapidly marched through Hispania and
the Alps,
causing panic among Rome's Italian allies. The best way found to defeat
Hannibal's purpose of causing the Italians to abandon Rome was to delay the
Carthaginians with a guerillawar
of attrition, a strategy propounded by Quintus Fabius Maximus, who would be
nicknamed Cunctator ("delayer"
in Latin), and whose strategy would be forever after known as Fabian.
Due to this, Hannibal's goal was unachieved: he couldn't bring Italian cities to
revolt against Rome and replenish his diminishing army, and he thus lacked the
machines and manpower to besiege Rome.
Still, Hannibal's invasion lasted over 16 years, ravaging Italy. Finally, when
the Romans perceived that Hannibal's supplies were running out, they sent
Scipio, who had defeated Hannibal's brother Hasdrubal, to invade the unprotected
Carthaginian hinterland and force Hannibal to return to defend Carthage itself.
The result was the ending of the Second Punic War by the famously decisive Battle
of Zama in October 202 BC, which
gave to Scipio his agnomen Africanus.
At great cost, Rome had made significant gains: the conquest of Hispania by
Scipio, and of Syracuse, the last Greek realm in Sicily, by Marcellus.
More than a half century after these events, Carthage was humiliated and Rome
was no more concerned about the African menace. The Republic's focus now was
only to the Hellenistic kingdoms
of Greece and revolts in Hispania. However, Carthage after having paid the war
indemnity, felt that its commitments and submission to Rome had ceased – a
vision not shared by the Roman
Senate. In 151 BC Numidia invaded
Carthage, and after asking for Roman help, ambassadors were sent to Carthage,
among them was Marcus
Porcius Cato, who after seeing that Carthage could make a comeback and
regain its importance, ended all his speeches, no matter what the subject was,
by saying: "Ceterum
censeo Carthaginem esse delendam" ("Furthermore, I think that Carthage
must be destroyed").
As Carthage fought with Numidia without Roman consent, Rome declared war against
Carthage in 149 BC. Carthage resisted well at the first strike, with the
participation of all the inhabitants of the city. However, Carthage could not
withstand the attack of Scipio
Aemilianus, who entirely destroyed the city and its walls, enslaved and sold
all the citizens and gained control of that region, which became the province of Africa.
Thus ended the Punic War period.
All these wars resulted in Rome's first overseas conquests, of Sicily,Hispania and
Africa and the rise
of Rome as a significant imperial
power.[43][44]
Late Republic
Main article: Roman
Republic
After defeating the Macedonian and Seleucid
Empires in the 2nd century BC,
the Romans became the dominant people of the Mediterranean
Sea.[45][46] The
conquest of the Hellenistic kingdoms provoked a fusion between Roman and Greek
cultures and the Roman elite, once rural, became a luxurious and cosmopolitan
one. By this time Rome was a consolidated empire – in the military view – and
had no major enemies.
Foreign dominance led to internal strife. Senators became rich at the provinces'
expense, but soldiers, who were mostly small-scale farmers, were away from home
longer and could not maintain their land, and the increased reliance on foreign slavesand
the growth of latifundia reduced
the availability of paid work.[47][48]
Income from war booty, mercantilism in
the new provinces, and tax
farming created new economic
opportunities for the wealthy, forming a new class of merchants,
theequestrians.[49] The lex
Claudia forbade members of
the Senate from engaging in commerce, so while the equestrians could
theoretically join the Senate, they were severely restricted in political power.[23][50] The
Senate squabbled perpetually, repeatedly blocking important land
reforms and refusing to give the
equestrian class a larger say in the government.
Violent gangs of the urban unemployed, controlled by rival Senators, intimidated
the electorate through violence. The situation came to a head in the late 2nd
century BC under the Gracchi brothers,
a pair oftribunes who
attempted to pass land reform legislation that would redistribute the major
patrician landholdings among the plebeians. Both brothers were killed and the
Senate passed reforms reversing the Gracchi brother's actions.[51] This
led to the growing divide of the plebeian groups (populares)
and equestrian classes (optimates).
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