Western Civ blog 50

Today on our online western civ class we had to explain how, where, why, and who fought the Punic Wars. The wars were tough from 264 - 146 BCE. There were three wars fought by Rome and Carthage. The first one was fought from 264 to 241 BCE. Naval battles for control of the strategically located island of Sicily.Rome won this war. The second war was fought form 218 to 201 BCE. Carthaginian general Hannibal, who was 29-year-old, almost does the impossible, taking Rome. He attacks Rome from the North after crossing Iberia, Spain, and the Alps. He lays siege too much of the peninsula for 15 years, but he never can get to Rome. The third, and final war was fought from 149 to 146 BCE. Rome wanted to remove the threat of Carthage. Scipio, Tiberius Gracchus, and others attacked the city. Carthage was burned for 17 days. This caused the city’s walls and buildings to be destroyed. When the war ended, the last 50,000 people in the city were sold into slavery. The rest of Carthage’s territories were annexed, and made into the Roman province of Africa. The 50,000 Carthaginians, 150,000 Greek Pows slaves were poured into Italy. At the end of the second century BCE there were more than a million slaves in Italy.All the small farmers lost their land to aristocrats, for little or no money. Slaves did the work on the farms for the rich. The big farms became massive estates called latifundia.