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Expansion overseas gave Rome the opportunity to strengthen its empire by war; But, as a drawback it resulted in the breakdown of the Republic, as well as its Empire. Expansion Overseas made Rome a mighty empire for a short period of time, until both the Empire and the republic became unstable and eventually broke down. Hooker, author of Roman History in 1996 states: Roman history begins in a small village in central Italy; this unassuming village would grow into a small metropolis, conquer and control all of Italy, southern Europe, the Middle East, and Egypt, and find itself, by the start of what no other people had managed before: the ruled the entire world under a single administration for a considerable amount of time. This imperial rule, which extended from Great Britain to Egypt, from Spain to Mesopotamia, was a period of remarkable peace. The Romans would look to their empire as the instrument that brought law and justice to the rest of the world; in some sense, the relative peace and stability they brought to the world did support this view.
They were, however, a military state, and they ruled over this vast territory by maintaining a strong military presence in subject countries. An immensely practical people, the Romans devoted much of their brilliance to military strategy and technology, administration, and law, all in support of the vast world government that they built. Rome, however, was responsible for more than just military and administrative genius. Culturally, the Romans had a slight inferiority complex in regards to the Greeks, who had begun their city-states only a few centuries before the rise of the Roman Republic. The Romans, however, derived much of their culture from the Greeks: art, architecture, philosophy, and even religion. However, the Romans changed much of this culture, adapting it to their own particular worldview and practical needs.
It is this changed Greek culture, which we call Greece-Roman culture, that was handed down to the European civilizations in late antiquity and the Renaissance. Our journey through this remarkable history begins with the land itself and the various peoples that inhabited it. Unlike most of the regions dealt with, Italy was a multicultural landscape that came to be dominated by this small village, Rome. Expansion overseas made Rome a mighty Empire during the 200 s and 100 s BC Rome came into conflict first with Carthage, a sea power and trading center on the coast of northern Africa.
Hooker author of The Punic Wars 1996, stated that: Carthage was the greatest naval power of the Mediterranean in the third century BC. The Carthaginians were originally Phoenicians and Carthage was a colony founded by the Phoenician capital city of Tyre in the ninth century BC; the word Carthage means, in Phoenician, The New City. The Phoenicians, however, were conquered by the Assyrians in the sixth century BC, and the conquered by the Persians; an independent Phoenician state would never again appear in the Middle Ease. Carthage, however, remained; it was no longer a colony, but a fully functioning independent state. While the Romans were steadily increasing their control over the Italian peninsula, the Carthaginians were extending their empire over most of North Africa.
By the time that Rome controlled all of the Italian peninsula, Carthage already controlled the North African coast from western Libya to the Strait of Gibraltar, and ruled over most of southern Spain, and the island of Corsica and Sardinia in Europe as well. Carthage was a formidable power; it controlled almost all the commercial trade in the Mediterranean had subjected vast numbers of people all whom sent soldiers and supplies, and amassed tremendous wealth from gold and silver mines in Spain. These two mighty empires came into contact in the middle of the third century BC when Romes power had reached the southern tip of Italy. The two peoples had been in sporadic contact before, but neither side felt threatened by the others. The Romans were perfectly aware of the Carthaginian heritage: they called them by their old name, Phoenicians. In Latin, the word is Phone, which gives us the name for the wars between the two stated, the Punic Wars.
These conflicts, so disastrous for Carthage, were inevitable. Between Carthage and Italy lay the huge island of Sicily; Cartage controlled the western half of Sicily, but the southern tip of the Italian peninsula put the Romans within throwing distance of the island. When the city of Messana revolted against the Carthaginians, the Romans intervened, and the first Punic War erupted. First Punic War: Boise author of webpage The Punic Wars 1996 stated that: Carthage had in the 260 s, control of much of Sicily. This mattered little to Rome, for it had few direct interests there.
Thus, when a complicated little dispute arose in the city of Messana in 264, and one side appealed to Carthage while the other appealed to Rome, no one thought it was any more than a local quarrel. Messana was a port city controlling the Straits and so when a Carthaginian fleet was invited in by one side, Rome felt it had to respond in some way. An expeditionary force caused the Punic (the Roman word for Carthaginian) fleet to withdraw and that would well have been that. The Punic admirals retreat was ill-received at home, and Carthage responded with a larger force, prying out the Romans. Now the issue was more serious, and Rome responded with a consular army. Again Rome won an easy victory so easy, in fact, that the consul decided to press into the interior in search of more.
The Line of this story should be obvious by now. Carthage responded with a still-larger army, about 50, 000. And Rome answered in kind, winning such quick victories in 262 that they won nearly the entire island. Further victories however, were much harder to win, as it became apparent that Rome would have to win control of the sea if it was to keep its gains in Sicily. The war, so thoughtlessly begun, would last 20 years. Neither side had sought a major conflict, but neither side had sought a major conflict, but neither side knew how to withdraw once the issue was joined.
This was was fought on a scale much larger than Rome had before attempted. The main battles were fought at sea, to support key sieges and expeditions, for Carthage was a first-rate naval power. But land battles were fought in Corsica, Sardinia, Africa and Sicily. Both sides regularly kept fleets of 100 to 200 ships and armies of 50, 000 to 70, 000 in the field for year after year. Rome made many mistakes in this war, and suffered terrible losses for it. Romans were not sailors, and they lost more ships in the war than did Carthage 600 ships lost over the course of 20 years.
Every time Rome won a significant victory, the advantage was frittered away by incompetent generals or a timid Senate. One of the greatest weaknesses of the Republic was that it elected new generals every year, a system that served well enough except in times of extended crises. Rome prevailed at last in 241. Carthage, exhausted more than beaten, sued for peace and accepted harsh terms. The city itself, however, remained unconquered. And her merchant fleets continued to generate wealth.
Rome imposed a heavy identity in Carthage, to compensate her for her losses. She also forced Carthage to give up all claims to Sicily. Thus, as the result of this war, Rome won an easy income and a new province. It was the first step in the creation if the Roman Empire. Rome also learned some important lessons in this war. For one thing, Romans learned how to make war at sea.
It is too much to say they learned to be sailors even at the end of the Republic, they were still hiring Greeks to captain their ships but they learned how to conduct naval warfare in an eminently Roman fashion. The conflict was still not over. And both sides knew it. Second Punic War: The peace treaty had put Carthage in an impossible position. Carthage had to fight to regain her position or wither away to insignificance, a fate she would not accept willingly. Moreover, Rome continued to be aggressive acquiring Corsica in the 220 s.
Soon after, the results of the First Punic War were apparent. Boise 1996 stated: Not long after the end of the First Punic War, Carthage acquired a genuine hero: Hamilcar Barca. This member of a noble Carthaginian family conquered much of Spain, acquiring in the process great quantities of Spanish bullion, gaining Spanish cavalry as auxiliaries, and forging in the process a field army of great skill and experience. Hamilcar hated Rome and longed to be the man who would avenge the shame of the First Punic War.
As the years went by, however, he began to realize it was not fated for him, and taught his son both his skills in battle and his hatred of Rome. His sins name was Hannibal. Hamilcar died when Hannibal was still young man. The son spent some time dealing with the inevitable rebellions, but quickly established himself as an even greater leader than his gather. Hannibal was, by all accounts both ancient and modern, a military genius. Because he eventually was on the losing side, he is also rather a figure of tragedy.
When he marched on Rome, at the age of 25, he cast a shadow over the entire history of the Roman Republic. Hannibal was determined to fight Rome, a war that he viewed as inevitable. He was concerned to fight at a time propitious to himself and to Carthage, and he was determined to fight the war on Carthaginian terms. Hannibal's plan was both desperate and brilliant. Romes great strength was her nearly endless reserves of manpower, the result of her system of alliances throughout Italy. But those alliances were exploitative; Romes allies were unhappy with their treatment and unhappy with Romes seemingly endless wars.
So, Hannibal would invade Italy itself. His army would by itself be fat too small to achieve victory, but he believed the Italian allies were so deeply disaffected that he would only have to win a few early victories and proclaim the liberty of the Italian allies, and they would desert Rome. Without her allied reserves, Romes armies could not stand against Hannibal's superior generalship. Everything depended on those two elements: early and convincing victories and the defection of the Italian allies. Hannibal was gambling everything on these.
War came in 218, when a quarrel broke out over the Roman colony of Saguntum. The Romans believed they could easily contain Hannibal in Spain, but he gave the Roman army the slip and was across the Pyrenees almost before the Romans know what had happened. The end of the Second Punic War: In 202 BC Romes second war with Carthage came to an end. Tome again forced Carthage to pay a terrible price: this time, Carthage had to give up her entire empire. Spain, the islands, North Africa, her navy, her army, all if it was either gone or drastically reduced.
All that was left to her was the city itself, a hinterland of some thirty miles, and a miniscule army to protect against desert tribes. Carthage was allowed no foreign policy but became a client of Rome. Indeed, a ditch marked the limits of Carthaginian territory, and it was part of the peace treaty that should armed Carthaginians cross that border it automatically ment war with Rome. Hannibal himself went east, forbidden to live in his native city. He took service with various eastern kings, and for some years rumors shook Rome that Hannibal was conspiring with this or that king to raise an army and march again on Italy. When Hannibal finally died, somewhat mysteriously, and before this time, it was believed that he had been poisoned, either at the behest of the Senate or by an eastern king seeking to curry favor with the Senate.
Third Punic War: The Third Punic War was a brief, tawdry affair, unworthy of the heroism if the heroism of the previous conflicts. If ever there was a war that could be called unnecessary, this one would qualify. Despite all the penalties and all the impediments, Carthage recovered economically. Rome had taken away her empire and the financial burden that went with it, but had left her free to pursue trade as she willed. Carthage paid off her war indemnity and by the middle of the second century, was flourishing. This did not set well with many Roman senators.
Rome had acquired a good deal of fertile land along the coast of fertile land along the coast of North Africa, and a number of senators had invested in olives and grain there. But these were goods in which Carthage traded as well, and Carthage was rather better at it. A faction within the Senate, led by Cato the Elder, began to agitate against Carthage. Was it right, they asked, that Carthage should prosper while Romans toiled? Was Carthage's new prosperity not potentially dangerous? After all, the city had twice troubled Rome.
And, in any case, Carthage was harming Roman mercantile interests. Cato took the lead in these arguments. He was a prestigious statesmen with a prestigious reputation. He was the classic virtuous Roman and he didnt mind that others knew it. His public career was spotless, his marriage was perfect, his oratory was compelling, his values were conservative, and all in all he got on some peoples nerves.
Cato began to urge that the only sure defense against resurgent Carthage was to destroy it. Rome would never be safe so long as Carthage stood. He made a campaign of it: Carthage depends est! Carthage must be destroyed! In the 150 s this was Cato's slogan, repeated endlessly. At parties he would bring it up -- Carthage depends est!
In the Senate he might be speaking on any subject, but always found a way to work in his slogan: the harbor t Ostia should be expanded and a Carthage must be destroyed! The appointment of Gaius Gaius to provincial governor should be approved and Carthage must be destroyed! A vote of thanks to a loyal tribal chieftain and Carthage must be destroyed! In the end, Cati got his wish. I might claim that Rome went to war simply to hush the old boy up, but alas Carthage gave Rome all the excuse it needed.
Romes Expansion not only caused the Punic Wars but also the breakdown of the republic. Narrow 1994, author of The Roman Republic stated that: Julius Caesars sudden death left a power vacuum in Rome. The Senators who had murdered the dictator assumed that the Senate would quickly regain its traditional powers and undo the damage to the republic that Caesar and other power generals had done. But this did not happen. To their surprise, the conspirators found little popular support for their violent act. This was partly because Caesars two strongest allies, Mark Antony, now serving as consul, and Marcus Lepidus, a powerful general, were still in Rome.
They enjoyed the support of both the army and a large number of citizens, rich and poor. Caesar had also left an heir, his eighteen-year-old grandnephew Gaius Octavius, known as Octavian. The constantly shifting intrigues, alliances, and power struggles among these three men would keep Rome entangled in destructive civil strife for another fifteen years. Eventually, one of them would emerge from the fray and restore order, but under a system far different from the one that had guided Rome for centuries. The Rise of Octavian: After Caesars death Antony wasted no time in establishing his authority. Using the army to intimidate the senators, as Caesar ha...
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