First Punic War

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The First Punic War started in 264 BC when the Romans attacked the Carthaginians. This war lasted for 23 years and ended in 241 BC. The reason the Romans attacked the Carthaginians in the first place was because the Romans wanted the granaries on Sicily which mostly belonged to Carthage.

A Carthaginian warship

The first thing the Romans had to do was build a navy. The Carthaginians had a strong navy and the Roman army wouldn't be able to attack Carthage because it was across the Mediterranean. The Romans built their ships after a Carthaginian ship they found, abandoned, on a beach. The only change the Romans made to the warship was they added a corvus, or movable bridge, on the front of their ships. This would let soldiers board the enemy ship and be able to fight hand-to-hand with the enemy. This essentially made the sea war turn into a land war.

Although the Romans lost a lot of ships and men in storms, they still defeated Carthage. So in 241 BC, the Carthaginians made peace a gave Sicily to the Romans.

Second Punic War

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The Second Punic War began in 218 BC after 23 years of peace. This time, the Carthaginians began the war. The Carthaginian general was named Hannibal Barca. He attacked the Roman army from the north. Hannibal surprised the Roman troops by by attacking through France from Spain and going over the alps to eventually attack Rome. Hannibal used elephants to break through the Roman lines.

Hannibal got many victories but when he reached Rome, he didn't have what he needed to break down the cities walls and couldn't get more supplies because the sea belonged to the Roman navy.

Since capturing Rome wasn't possible, Hannibal went through Italy attacking towns in the countryside and destroyed their crops. Then the Romans attacked Carthage and Hannibal had to go defend it. So Hannibal lost the war and Carthage's power was taken away.

Then, in 201 BC, Carthage paid Rome a lot of money and gave up all its territories. This gave Rome the resources of copper, gold, lead, and iron in Spain.

Third Punic War

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Next, there was about 50 years of peace before Carthage began to look like it was regaining power. So Rome attacked Carthage in 149 BC and began the Third Punic War. Rome plowed salt into Carthage's fields to keep them from growing and burned Carthage. The Romans also took the Carthaginians and either killed them or put them into slavery.

Then, in 146 BC, Corinth started to refuse to obey the Roman order so the Romans attacked Corinth and burned it to the ground. Now Rome had added Greece into the areas it ruled and because of that, Rome became the Mediterranean's leading power.