Describe the Persian War in detail.

Describe the Peloponnesian War in detail.

What are the social classes of Rome?

Who could be citizens and what were there responsibilities?

What were the laws of Rome? Can you remember some examples?

World History I

SOL WH1.6d

Mr. Driskell

A. As Rome was becoming more and more powerful, the other nations around the Mediterranean began to take notice. One of these was Carthage, the most powerful nation in the western Mediterranean.

B. Rome and Carthage disagreed over who should control Sicily, a big island to the south of Italy. Their disagreement eventually resulted in war.

At first, the Romans did badly in the Punic wars, because the Carthaginians were expert sailors, while the Roman did most of their fighting on land. One day, though, the Romansgot lucky. They found a Carthaginian ship that had washed up on shore during a storm, brought it back to Rome, and copied it. That gave them a fleet just as good as Carthage.

Eventually, the Romans won the first Punic War, and they made the Carthaginians give them Sicily and other islands. They also made the Carthaginians give up their fleet and pay the Romans a huge amount of money. The Carthaginians were extremely unhappy with the arrangement and wanted revenge.

Carthage spent the years following the war improving its finances and expanding its colonial empire in Hispania under the militaristic Barcid family. Rome's attention was mostly concentrated on the Illyrian Wars. In 219 BC Hannibal, the son of Hamilcar Barca, attacked Saguntum in Hispania, a city allied to Rome, starting the second Punic War.

A young Carthaginian general named Hannibalhated the Romans with a passion, and decided to bring his army from Spain over the Alps Mountains, and attack Rome itself.

The Romans sent out many armies to stop Hannibal, but Hannibal was too smart for them. He constantly laid traps for the Romans, and the Romans always walked right into them. At the Battle of Cannae, Hannibal killed 70,000Romans and captured another 10,000. Out of the entire Roman army, only 3,000 survived to make it back to Rome. It may have been the worst defeat any army ever suffered in the ancient world.

After Cannae, Hannibal demanded that the Romans surrender, but they refused. They kept sending armies into the field, and Hannibal stayed in Italy for almost twenty years without being able to defeat Rome. Eventually, a Roman general named Scipio Africanusmanaged to defeat Hannibal and bring the Second Punic War to an end.

Battle of Zama - 202 B.C.

A Roman army led by PubliusCornelius Scipio Africanusdefeated a Carthaginian force led by the legendary commander Hannibal. Soon after this defeat on their home ground, the Carthaginian senate sued for peace, which was given to them by the Roman Republic on rather humiliating terms, ending the 17-year war.

After the Second Punic War, Rome realized it would never have peace as long as Carthage still stood. They sent their armies to attack and destroy Carthage, which they were successful in doing.

The Romans also decided to punish the Greeks, who had allied with the Carthaginians. The Roman armies defeated the Greek armies and took control of Greece.

Thus, by the end of the Third Punic War, the Romans controlled all of the Mediterranean Basinand most of Western Europe and were now one of the largest nations on Earth.