Causes of the Second Punic War
WORD COUNT: 1650 The two biggest powers of the Mediterranean where always destined to come head to head once again after the First Punic War (264 to 241 BC). There was no clear victor and the terms set by the Romans were extremely harsh. Even though the main cause of the second war was the war on Saguntum you must go back all the way to the ending of the First War. The war on Saguntum was seen by Polybius to be just the first incident in the war. In this essay I will look into the causes of the Second Punic War with the intention of backing up Polybius argument that the war on Saguntum was just the first incident and not a cause as Livy views it. I will be doing this with close analysis of our ancient sources. Three main causes will be looked into along with a few others. The first one being the treatment Carthage received after the war. Putting restrictions to such a vast empire was never going to go well with the Carthaginian leaders; Hamilcar and his son Hannibal. Even more so when the Carthage Empire was still a powerful state and could probably still match Rome in war. Also the fact that hatred towards the Romans had increased and many wanted justice in the form of revenge for the harsh terms set by the Romans was another contributing factor.
The mistreatment of the Carthage Empire by the Romans could be seen as a major cause of the war. Unlike what occurred in Italy where in the case of a Roman victory the enemy stopped posing a threat and was then turned into a subordinate ally, Carthage was just too far away and too big of an empire to be immersed by Rome. Instead of treating Carthage as an equal they treated them as inferiors and this caused resentment towards Rome by the Carthaginians. “From the Carthaginian perspective, there was no reason for them to behave as a subordinate ally to Rome.” Contrary to popular belief in Rome, Carthage had in fact not been weakened as much as they thought and with the growth of their empire in Spain they were only
The mistreatment of the Carthage Empire by the Romans could be seen as a major cause of the war. Unlike what occurred in Italy where in the case of a Roman victory the enemy stopped posing a threat and was then turned into a subordinate ally, Carthage was just too far away and too big of an empire to be immersed by Rome. Instead of treating Carthage as an equal they treated them as inferiors and this caused resentment towards Rome by the Carthaginians. “From the Carthaginian perspective, there was no reason for them to behave as a subordinate ally to Rome.” Contrary to popular belief in Rome, Carthage had in fact not been weakened as much as they thought and with the growth of their empire in Spain they were only
Bibliography: Primary Sources • Livy. The War with Hannibal. Translated by A. de Sélincourt. Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1965 • Polybius. Rise of the Roman Empire. Translated by I. Scott-Kilvert. Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1979 Secondary Sources • Bagnall, N. The Punic Wars: Rome, Carthage and the Struggle for the Mediterranean. New York, NY, Thomas Dunne Books, 2005 • Caven, B. The Punic Wars. London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1980. • Cornell, T., B. Rankov and P. Sabin (eds.) The Second Punic War: A Reappraisal. London, Institute of Classical Studies, 1996 • H. H. Scullard, A history of the Roman world from 753 to 146 B.C., London: Methuen, 1961, p.198 • Hoyos, B.D. Unplanned Wars: The Origins of the First and Second Punic Wars, Berlin, Walter de Gruyter, 1998.) • J.F. Lazenby, Hannibal 's war : a military history of the Second Punic War / J.F. Lazenby, Norman;University of Oklahoma Press, 1998. Oklahoma paperbacks ed.