The Roman Conquest of the Mediterranean

MEDITERRANEAN PEOPLES HIST 1301 | History The Roman Conquest of the Mediterranean Rome arrived to confront Carthage, the other significant force in the area, after capturing the majority of the Italian peninsula. Then came a string of conflicts between Rome and Carthage, known as the Punic Wars. Sicily was the centre of a conflict between Rome and Carthage during the First Punic War (264–241 BCE). The Romans prevailed by laying a hooked board on the deck of an enemy ship and used it as a causeway to cross over, turning a sea fight in which they were inferior into a land war in which they could dominate, even though Carthage possessed the greatest fleet at the time. Carthage filed a peace suit after its navy was destroyed, and Rome annexed Sicily to bring the conflict to a conclusion. Carthage was seeking retribution. The Carthaginian leader Hannibal led his army from Hispania (modernday Portugal and Spain) into Italy during the Second Punic War (218–201 BCE), crossing southern Gaul and the Alps en route. The army also included hundreds of war elephants. Hannibal wished that Rome's friends would desert and hand the city up to him. However, even after Hannibal decisively beat Roman soldiers at the Battle of Cannae and after repeatedly defeating Roman armies, the majority of Rome's Italian allies stayed faithful. Rome dispatched an army across the Mediterranean to invade Carthage while Hannibal's army was tearing through Italy, and Carthage called Hannibal back to protect his homeland. After the Roman army defeated Hannibal in the Battle of Zama in 202 BCE, Scipio, the Roman leader, was dubbed "Africanus." Carthage lost all of its overseas possessions after suing for peace. Thus, Rome came into possession of Carthage's Hispania. Afraid of Rome's expansion just over the Adriatic Sea from his own country, King Philip V of Macedon formed an alliance with Carthage during the conflict. Following its triumph over Carthage, Rome formally declared war on its new foe. Despite defeating Roman forces many times, Philip's Macedonian army ran out of supplies after losing the Battle of Cynoscephalae in northern Greece in 196 BCE. As thus, he consented to turn Rome into his ally. Rome also freed all area of Greece that had been ruled by the Macedonians. Antiochus III, the monarch of the Seleucid Empire, was encouraged by Philip's loss to push his army into Greece in an attempt to seize the land Philip had left behind. Just as Philip had, Rome believed that Antiochus's control of Greece constituted a threat to Italy. Roman soldiers routed Antiochus III's army in the Battle of Magnesia in western Asia Minor in 190 BCE. At that point, Antiochus consented to leave Asia Minor. Rome learned in the second century BCE that the risks posed by hostile nations never stopped. Philip V's son Perseus abandoned the relationship with Rome. His army was routed in the Battle of Pydna in 168 BCE when Roman soldiers invaded Macedon as a result of his connections with Balkan tribes that were threatening to attack Italy. Following the dissolution of the Macedonian kingdom by Rome, the region quickly turned into a Roman province, and Perseus perished from famine while imprisoned there. The main city of the Achaean League, Corinth, was devastated by Rome in 146 BCE when the League contested Roman rule over Greece and Macedonia in the Peloponnese region of Greece. Fearing that Carthage might reemerge as a major military and economic force, Roman soldiers also devastated the city in the same year during the Third Punic War. There was no longer any Mediterranean force that could rival Rome after 146 BCE.