Punic Wars

Today in class we went over how Rome completely DESTROYED Carthage. These are the notes I took during class.

Roman Legion

• 5000 soldiers> not yet in it for pay
• the Romans army's elite heavy infantry
• recruited excessively from citizens of Rome
• group of 80's a century
• on horseback in a cavlary
• shield, sword, dagger, and armor and a tunic

*PUNIC WARS (264-146 BCE)*

• Rome vs. Carthage
• 3 wars

2 empires fight for control

• First Punic War (254-241 BCE)
• naval battles for control of the strategically located on the island of Sicily
• Rome wins

Second Punic War

• 29 y.o. Carthaginian general Hannibal almost does the impossible (takes Rome) 
• attacks Rome from NORTH after crossing Iberia (Spain) and the Alps
• lays siege to much of the peninsula for 15 years, but he can never get to Rome
• Rome:2 ; Carthage:0

Third and Final Punic War (149-146)

• Rome wanted to finally remove the threat of Carthage 
• Scipio, Tiberius Gracchus, and others mercilessly attacked the city
• Carthage was burned for 17 days; the city walls and buildings were utterly destroyed
• when the wore ended, the last 50k people in the city were sold into slavery
• the rest of Carthage's territories were annexed (part of Rome) and made into Roman province. 

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 Economic Change and Social Upheavel

• slaves poured into Italy (50,000 Carthaginians; 150,000 greeks, 50,000 POW
• by the end of the second century BCE there was over a million slaves in Italy
• small farmers lost their land to aristocrats (for little or no money) if they couldn't pay there debts, sometimes because the men of the farm were fighting battles
• slaves did the work for the rich
• the big farms became massive estates called latifundia.