Rome and Carthage

p When the Romans turned their attention further afield, beyond the confines of the Apennine peninsula, their gaze first alighted on Sicily. In the words of one of the ancient historians, this island was a rich and tempting prize near at hand, torn away from Italy as it were.

p Yet here the Romans came up against a serious rival in Carthage, another powerful, slave-holding state. The town of Carthage was situated on the north coast of Africa (on the shores of the Gulf of Tunis) and according to legend was founded as far back as the ninth century B.C. It had become an important Mediterranean power long before Rome. The economic power of Carthage was based on her role as a trading centre. Because of her favourable geographical situation Carthage had become the distribution centre for raw materials and finished products 94 throughout the Mediterranean. In addition it possessed flourishing plantations: the lands around the city belonging to the rich Carthaginians were worked by thousands of slaves. At that time the Carthaginians were also famed for their rational agricultural methods.

p The growth of trade and the increasing importance of agriculture had led to political power in Carthage being in the hands of the landowners and merchants. The Carthaginian state structure was that of a republic, but since there were very few free peasants on the land this meant that the democratic aspects in the Carthaginian constitution were deprived of any firm base. The Popular Assembly played a minor role. Executive power was held by two suffetes whose functions resembled those of the Roman consuls and who were in command of the army and the fleet. There was also a Council of 300 similar to the Roman Senate; from among its members a Council of 30 was elected which carried out all the interim work between meetings of the Council of 300. The Carthaginians had a strong army and navy. The weakness of their army lay in the fact that it consisted mainly of mercenaries. However, its professional standards were high and its technical equipment advanced (war elephants, siege weapons, etc.).

The Carthaginians were active colonisers. They founded subject colonies on the north coast of Africa, in southern Spain and on the Balearic islands. Carthaginians had also settled in Corsica and Sardinia and at the time of their first confrontation with Rome they controlled almost the whole of Sicily with the exception of Syracuse and Messana. It was their attempt to subjugate the latter city that led to the conflict with Rome.

The First and Second Punic Wars

p The First Punic War (the Romans referred to the Carthaginians as the Punic people) lasted for twenty-three years (264-241 B.C.). The first engagements took place in Sicily where the Romans scored a number of successes. However these successes were never decisive since the Romans had no fleet and were thus unable to contest Carthaginian sea-power. Only after the Romans had built a fleet and won their first sea victory were they able to transfer the theatre of operations to African territory. However, this first African expedition was badly prepared and ended in complete failure.

p The war dragged on with hostilities once more centred on Sicily. Both armies were obliged to fight all-out in this evenly matched conflict which came to an end only after the decisive sea battle of the Aegadian isles to the west of Sicily (241 B.C.) when the 95 Carthaginian fleet was defeated once and for all. After this the Carthaginians had no choice but to conclude a peace treaty seceding Sicily to Rome and pay large tribute.

p Some time afterwards the Romans committed an act of unprovoked aggression by seizing Corsica and Sardinia. Yet the Carthaginians were obliged to resign themselves to this as well since a revolt of the mercenaries broke out nearer home, which constituted a particularly dangerous threat when the people of Libya joined forces with the insurgents.

p This revolt was put down by the Carthaginian General Hamilcar Barca who had risen to prominence in the First Punic War. After quelling the revolt he gained considerable authority in Carthage and was acknowledged as chief among the military leaders who dreamt of a new war of revenge against Rome. In order to prepare better for a new confrontation, Hamilcar set off with the Carthaginian army to Spain which he hoped to conquer and thus create a bridgehead for the imminent war with the Romans.

p During the fighting in Spain Hamilcar died. The command of the Carthaginian troops was first taken over by his son-in-law and then by his young son Hannibal. According to legend, when Hamilcar set off to conquer Spain, Hannibal who was then aged eleven asked his father to take him with him. Hamilcar agreed, but on condition that Hannibal take a vow of eternal enmity towards Rome. Hannibal took this vow and remained true to it all his life.

p When Hannibal took over the command of the army the question of war with Rome had for all practical purposes already been decided. The Second Punic War began in 218 B.C. and lasted for a whole seventeen years. Hannibal devised a bold plan for war against Rome on Italian soil. In order to carry out this plan he had to undertake the extremely difficult task of crossing the Alps. In his battles against the Romans Hannibal displayed remarkable military genius, and inflicted a series of crushing defeats on the Roman army, the most famous of which was at the Battle of Cannae (216 B.C.) when Hannibal succeeded in surrounding and routing his enemy.

However Hannibal’s campaign against Rome proved to be practically a one-man effort against a mighty state. Carthage did not provide its military leader with the necessary support. For this reason, although he did not suffer a single defeat, Hannibal eventually found himself cut off and isolated in southern Italy. The cities which had come over onto his side were gradually won back by the Romans and the young Roman commander Publius Cornelius Scipio scored a number of victories against the Carthaginians in Spain. After ridding Spain of Carthaginian troops, 96 Scipio proposed a campaign in Africa. He organised an expeditionary force and landed not far from Carthage, upon which the Carthaginian government hastened to summon Hannibal back from Italy. In the year 202 B.C. the decisive battle of the war was fought at Zama, where Hannibal was to suffer his first and last defeat. On this occasion the conditions for peace put forward by the Romans were still more demanding than before: Carthage lost her colonies, handed over her fleet and all her elephants to the Romans and finally paid out tremendous tribute. These conditions undermined the military and political might of Carthage once and for all, so that the outcome of the Second Punic War left Rome the strongest power in the Mediterranean.

The Subjugation of the Balkan Peninsula.
The Third Punic War

p However, Rome was destined to be confronted by Carthage yet a third time, a mere fifty years after the end of the Second Punic War.

p During the intervening half-century, the Romans tenaciously pursued their territorial aspirations in the eastern Mediterranean. They waged three wars against the most dangerous of their eastern rivals—Hellenistic Macedonia. After the Second Macedonian War, the Romans arrogantly declared themselves liberators of Greece and in the year 196 the Roman commander Flaminius proclaimed it independent. In practical terms Greece had merely exchanged one ruler for another.

p After the Second Macedonian War hostilities broke out with the Syrian King Antiochus, who tried to form an anti-Roman coalition in the East. This was followed by yet another Macedonian War when the Macedonian King Perseus made a final attempt to set up a coalition against Rome. He was defeated and soon afterwards Macedonia became a province of Rome. When a liberation movement made its appearance in Greece the Romans brutally suppressed it, and in order to intimidate the Greeks still further destroyed Corinth (146 B.C.), one of the oldest and most illustrious cities of Greece.

In the year 149, the Third Punic War broke out. Since the last war Carthage, owing to her extremely favourable geographical situation, had been able to re-establish her economic position. Once again the city had become a major centre for Mediterranean trade. The Romans found this state of affairs intolerable. After accusing the Carthaginians of violating one of the points in the peace treaty of 201 B.C., they again declared war on their old rival, in the year 149. The siege of Carthage lasted for about 97 three years. It was finally taken by storm in a manoeuvre directed by Scipio’s adopted grandson, Scipio Aemilianus. On instructions from Rome the city was totally destroyed: it was set fire to and burned for sixteen days. Then all the land where ruins were still smouldering was ploughed over and an eternal curse was laid on it (146).

The Results of the Wars. The Roman Economy.
A Slave-holding Society

p The predatory wars which Rome waged in the Mediterranean basin for over a century transformed a small and insignificant city-state into a world power. This was inevitably reflected in the structure of Roman society, and led above all to important economic changes.

p The Roman conquests assured the city of an uninterrupted flow of money and valuables. After the First Punic War the Roman treasury received 3,200 talents. The indemnity acquired after the Second Punic War totalled ten thousand talents and a tribute of 15,000 was demanded from Antiochus. Tremendous booty was brought back by victorious Roman commanders. In the course of Aemilius Paulus’ triumphal entry into the city after his victory over the Macedonian King Perseus a procession of soldiers carrying and drawing on chariots captured works of art, valuable weapons, and enormous jars filled with gold and silver coins, took three days to march into Rome. After the victory over Antiochus the Romans brought home booty in the form of 1,280 elephant’s tusks, 234 gold garlands, 187 thousand pounds of silver, 224 thousand Greek silver coins, 140 thousand golden Macedonian coins and a large amount of gold and silver jewelry. Right up until the second century there was a shortage of silver coins in Rome but after these conquests, in particular after the capture of the Spanish silver mines the Roman state had ample silver at its disposal for its coinage.

p All this led to rapid expansion of Rome’s trading and financial dealings. Whole groups of tax-farmers sprang up who took on themselves the farming out of various forms of social services in Italy or the collection of taxes in the Roman provinces. These groups also lent out money for interest.

p This growth of trade and revenue was accompanied by a tremendous expansion of the slave population. Although war was not the only source of new slaves, the constant wars had nevertheless brought an enormous number of slaves onto the market. During the First Punic War the capture of Agrigentum alone brought the Romans 25,000 slaves. Several years later after gaining a victory over the Carthaginians the Roman consul Regulus 98 despatched 20,000 slaves to Rome. After the capture of Tarentum in the year 209, 30,000 of the town’s inhabitants were sold into slavery. In 167 B.C. after the rout of the cities of Epirus, 150 thousand souls were sold as slaves. Finally, at the end of the Third Punic War when Carthage was destroyed, all its inhabitants were enslaved. These figures are chosen at random and present by no means the whole picture, but they serve to convey at least some idea of the enormous mass of slaves running into hundreds of thousands which was literally pouring into Rome at that time.

p There were slave markets in almost all the major cities of the Roman state, in addition to those in Rome itself. An important centre of the slave trade was the island of Delos, where sometimes as many as 10,000 slaves were sold in a day. Prices varied according to supply. They fell considerably at times of successful military expeditions. The saying "as cheap as a Sardinian" caught on in Rome soon after the conquest of Sardinia.

p However, the prices of educated slaves or those possessing special qualifications (for example teachers, actors, cooks and dancers) were always very high and wealthy Roman citizens were prepared to pay sums running into thousands for them.

p In Italy itself, which remained an agrarian country, slaves were used mainly for work on the land. The slaves working on the landed estates or latifundia and in the landowners’ villas lived in particularly grim conditions. The Roman writer and statesman Cato the Elder, in his special work devoted to agriculture proffers detailed advice as to how slaves should be exploited to the owner’s greatest advantage. He recommended that they should be made to work on rainy days as well as fine ones and even on religious holidays.

p The wars of the third and second centuries B.C., which were mainly fought on Italian soil, undermined the peasant economy. The military expeditions to distant lands overseas, which took the peasants away from their land for months and sometimes years at a stretch also contributed towards its decline. The peasants became impoverished, left the country to come and seek work in the town, while the work of the slaves gradually came to constitute the backbone of Roman agriculture. In addition, the small and middle peasants were unable to compete with the large landed estates, where slave labour was used. Poverty and land hunger facing the peasants soon became one of the most acute problems of the Roman state.

The growth of trade and financial dealings, the expansion of the slave market, the impoverishment of the peasants—all bore witness to the fact that the Roman state had become a state with an advanced slave-holding society, i.e., a society with two main 99 diametrically opposed classes, those of slaves and slave-holders. This in its turn implied that social contradictions were bound to become more acute and eventually give rise to an intense class struggle.