Carthage And Rome: The Punic Wars

The Power of Carthage Carthage and Rome were two powerful states in the Ancient Western Mediterranean. These empires would eventually cross paths and be drawn into a pair of wars known as the Punic Wars (Morey, 1901). Prior to the wars, Rome was a force to be reckoned with as it had grown in power through a series of wars with neighboring states in which it was triumphant. Rome was so big and with citizens so loyal, few other states would dare challenge its might. That is until, Carthage had grown to almost it's equal. Differences were abundant between the two. For example, Carthage had more wealth but was less organized; Carthage held a superior Navy, however a less efficient army (Morey, 1901). Here, we'll look at what helped build Carthage into such a worthy contender.

Trade and Commerce Carthage's "power was based upon trade and commercial supremacy" (Morey, 1901, Para. 4). Due to the treaty signed in 509 B.C. between Carthage and Rome, there was a clear separation in commercial activities, which benefited Carthage for having such a large amount of land and cities under its control (Rodriguez, 2015). Because there were so many cities to trade with up and down the nearly all of northern Africa it controlled, as well as, the southern tip of Spain, Carthage became a power house in Western Mediterranean …show more content…
Not only did Carthage maintain a much more powerful navy, but it was much more experienced than the Romans. Out of interest in survival, Rome would have to come up to speed with Carthage in battles at sea in order to overcome this disadvantage. In fact, Rome built an entire fleet of hundreds of vessels in 60 days in order to even stand a chance (Morey, 1901). Rome would not only go on to win strategic victories on the water, but once Rome emerged victorious in the Punic Wars they limited how large Carthage's military could