Carthage's Victory In The Punic Wars

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Introduction

In the Ancient World, there were two dominant powers, Carthage which controlled the western Mediterranean and Rome which controlled the Italian Peninsula. Both these powers wanted to expand their empires, which caused the rise of conflict between them, as both entities had their mind set on the other’s territory. Carthage was a great adversary to Rome and had a great army, led by an excellent military leader and arguably the best naval warships. In fact, Carthage seemed destined to equal Rome as a powerful empire, if not surpass it. It took clever tactics, great leadership, and perseverance on Rome’s part to finally conquer Carthage and also become a naval power.

How Carthage almost became the Equal of Rome

Carthage started out with a small territory, by using the ocean to their advantage, they explored the Mediterranean Sea and colonized new territories and also established new trading posts on islands and along the coast of
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It was inevitable that the two empires of the Mediterranean, Rome, and Carthage, would clash at some point, which brought us the Punic Wars.

During the first Punic War Carthage dominated the sea, while Rome dominated on land. Carthage’s domination of the sea changed when Rome found an abandoned ship on shore and started to replicate the Carthaginian ship, creating a naval empire of its own (Morey, 1901). The turning point in naval wars came in 241 BCE, when Rome annihilated the Carthaginian fleet, which subsequently ended the First Punic War, making Rome the new naval power in the Mediterranean Sea. By the end of the Second Punic War, Carthage only had about 10 naval ships left (Kanowitz, 2016).

During the Second Punic War, Carthage had a new secret weapon, commander Hannibal, a military mastermind. Under the leadership of Hannibal, the Carthaginian army defeated the Roman army during multiple