PUNIC WARS, a name specially appropriated to the wars between Rome and Carthage in the 3rd and 2nd centuries B.C. The origin of these conflicts is to be sought in the position which Rome acquired about 275 B.C. as suzerain and protector of all Italy. Her new obligation to safeguard the peninsula against foreign interference made it necessary that she should not allow the neighbouring island of Sicily to fall into the hands of a strong and expansive power. Carthage, on the other hand, had long been anxious to conquer Sicily and so to complete the chain of island posts by which she controlled the western Mediterranean.
First Punic War (264-241 proximate cause of the first outbreak was a crisis in the city of Messana, commanding the straits between Italy and Sicily. A band of Campanian mer cenaries, which had forcibly established itself within the town and was being hard pressed in 264 by Hiero II. of Syracuse, 'The chronology here given is the traditional one, but recent re searches tend to show that many events have been antedated by one year.
applied for help both to Rome and Carthage and thus brought a force from either power upon the scene. The Carthaginians, arriving first, occupied Messana and effected a reconciliation with Hiero. The Roman commander nevertheless persisted in throwing troops into the city, and by seizing the person of the Carthaginian admiral during a parley induced him to withdraw.
The Romans thus won an important strategic post, but their ag gression met a declaration of war from Carthage and Syracuse. Operations began with a joint attack upon Messana, which the Romans easily repelled. In 263 they advanced with a con siderable force into Hiero's territory and induced him to seek peace and alliance with them. Having thus secured their foot hold on the island they set themselves to wrest it completely from Carthage. In 262 they besieged and captured the enemy's base at Agrigentum, and proved that Punic mercenary troops could not stand before the infantry of the legions. But they
made little impression upon the Carthaginian fortresses in the west of the island and upon the towns of the interior which mostly sided against them. Thus in the following campaigns their army was practically brought to a standstill.
In 26o the war entered upon a new phase. Convinced that they could gain no serious advantage so long as the Carthaginians controlled the sea and communicated freely with their island possessions, the Romans built their first large fleet of standard battleships. At Mylae, off the north Sicilian coast, their admiral C. Duilius defeated a Carthaginian squadron of superior manoeuvring capacity by a novel application of grappling and boarding tactics. This victory left Rome free to land a force on Corsica and expel the Carthaginians (259), but did not suffice to loosen their grasp on Sicily.
After two more years of desultory warfare the Romans de cided to carry the war into the enemy's home territory. A large armament sailed out in 256, repelled a vigorous attack by the entire Carthaginian fleet off Cape Ecnomus (near Agrigentum) and established a fortified camp on African soil at Clypea. The Carthaginians, whose citizen levy was utterly disorganized, could neither keep the field against the invaders nor prevent their sub jects from revolting. A single campaign compelled them to sue for peace, but the terms which the Roman commander Atilius Regulus offered were intolerably harsh. Accordingly they equipped a new army in which, by the advice of a Greek captain of mer cenaries named Xanthippus, cavalry and elephants formed the strongest arm. In 255, under Xanthippus's command, they offered battle to Regulus, who had taken up position with an inadequate force near Tunes, outmanoeuvred him and destroyed the bulk of his army. A second Roman armament, which subsequently reached Africa after defeating the full Carthaginian fleet off Cape Hermaeum, did not venture to reopen the campaign, but with drew all the remaining troops.