The Involvement of Carthage and Rome in the Three Punic Wars

The Involvement of Carthage and Rome in the Three Punic Wars
The purpose of this paper is to examine the involvement of Carthage and Rome in the three Punic Wars. The factors discussed in this paper are these: the undercurrents for conflict that existed between the two nations following the Pyrrhic War and Roman hegemony of southern Italy, the inevitability of war between the two powers, and the reasons why Rome emerged victorious in the three conflicts. The paper concludes with a discussion of Rome's unnecessary destruction of Carthage following the third Punic War.
For centuries, Rome had remained a land power preoccupied with conquering territory in Italy. Carthage was a major naval power whose ships controlled the western Mediterranean. While Rome expanded for political reasons, trade and commerce motivated Carthage's foreign policy. During the centuries of their earliest contact, Rome and Carthage had lived in harmony (Scullard, 1989 as cited in Walbank et al., p.517). Because they had shared a common enemy in the Greeks for two and a half centuries, neither side felt threatened by the other (Asimov, 1966, p. 75). Heichelheim and Yeo(1962, p.115) agree that prior to 264 B.C., relations between Rome and Carthage, if not friendly, had at least been diplomatically correct.
In 509 B.C., Carthage had entered into a treaty with Rome aimed at establishing friendship so that commercial contact could continue between itself and the new republic. The treaty, devoid of political alignments, guaranteed the Carthaginians a trade monopoly in the western Mediterranean. In return, the Carthaginians promised not to raid any town in Latium. This treaty was again renewed in 348 B.C.
".... for a very long period of time both cities found it in their
mutual self-interest to maintain friendly agreements which would
last as long as Carthage was prepared not to promote her commercial