Carthage And Rome Research Paper

Week 5 Written Assignment:

Trace how Carthage became almost the equal of Rome. Be sure to show the strength of both and how this conflict led to Rome becoming a naval power.

Title:

Rome and Carthage Conflicts

Introduction:

Carthage and Rome, the two cities that evolve into great capitals. Both were very influential, and both are headstrong with their conquest. Here is my research on how Carthage became an equal to Rome.

Main Body:

Let us talk first about Carthage, in reference to Joshua J. Mark’s Definition “Carthage,” he says that according to legends Carthage was started by the Phoenician Queen Elissa (better known as Dido) at about 813 BCE. It was initially identified as Kart-Hadasht to distinguish it from the old Phoenician city.

Then the

Nevertheless, Carthage grew to become the most powerful city in the

Mediterranean before the rise of the Roman empire. (Joshua, 2011)

During the time when the great Phoenician city of Tyre fell to the hands of Alexander the Great in

332 BCE, the Tyrians were able to escape, and they fled to Carthage with whatever wealth they have.

Many of them who got spared was rich people who had enough to buy their lives, they landed in the city and established Carthage, and it became the new center of Phoenician trade. From a small town, the people were able to make it into a big city; it grew in extent and splendor with vast estates covering miles of land. The harbor they built was immense with 220 docks, polished pillars that rose around in a half circle and ornamented with Greek sculpture. The Carthaginian trading ships navigated daily to harbors all around Meditteranean Sea though their navy, best in the area, kept them safe and also the reason that for them opened new territories for trade and resource through their conquest. (Joshua, 2011)

Now we come and acknowledge the Romans, Ancient Rome by History.com say’s that,

with the overthrow of its seventh king. Whatever the cause though, Rome turned from a monarchy into a republic, a word which meaning “res publica” or “property of the people.”

Rome’s military conquests led directly to its social growth as a society, as the Romans benefited greatly from their contacts with such advanced cultures as the Greeks. (Staff)

Rome and Carthage fought a total of three “Punic Wars” which led to the latter’s destruction and re-founding. Historians still debate what the cause of the wars was, but what they know is that the spark that lit it happened in Sicily. In 265 B.C. the Mamertines a group of former mercenaries based in

Messina, Sicily asked for the help of both Carthage and Rome against Syracuse. Carthage sent their force to Messina to help but then suddenly got ejected by a larger Roman force. This situation escalated into an open war between the two great powers. The first Punic War would last for 20yrs and ended in Carthage accepting an embarrassing peace treaty which relinquishes Sicily along with much of their Mediterranean holdings to Rome. (Jarus, 2012)

Morey says in his Outlines of Roman History that learning from the first Punic Wars; the