The First Punic War

Introduction to the First Punic War

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0:30What a battlefield we are leaving for the Romans and Carthaginians to fight over. That is what a famous ancient Greek warlord supposedly said as he left the island of Sicily behind him in the early 3rd century BC. His name was Pyrrhus, King Pyrrhus of Epirus, and those words proved prophetic. Within two decades of Pyrrhus sailing away, Sicily would be the central battleground for the first great war between Rome and Carthage. The first Punic War.

1:02Lasting more than 20 years, this war would witness brutal city sieges and titanic naval battles, as the two major powers of the western Mediterranean came to blows again and again. War elephants, warship drawbridges, sacred chickens. This story has it all. Welcome to the Ancients. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and this is the story of the bloody and brutal First Punic War, the struggle for Sicily, with ancient historian and the Ancients' fan favourite, Dr. Eve MacDonald.

1:37Eve, great to have you back on the show. Thank you, Tristan. Pleasure to be here. And this time, we're talking about the first great war between Rome and Carthage, sometimes overshadowed by Hannibal Barker in the Second Punic War, but this is the big one that kicks it all off. Absolutely. The first Punic War, or maybe the first Romano-Carthaginian War,

2:13is how we would prefer to call it if we were Carthaginian. But yes, definitely, it is such a big battle, and it's such a long war, and it's a bit epic in every way. And it's interesting that we don't talk about it as much as we do, because it does set up everything that follows on as well. And is the central battleground for this war, is it Sicily? Is this just the big struggle for Sicily? It is. And of course, the big struggle for Sicily means so many things,

2:45more than just an island. It means struggle for control over the central Mediterranean, because if you control Sicily, you control the central Mediterranean. And I also think it's a three-way struggle to begin with, for the first year anyway, between Rome, Carthage, and Syracuse, or Syracuse, depending on your accent. Because really it is these three cities, three very important cities in the central Mediterranean, that start off being key to the first Punic War.

3:16Carthage, Rome, Syracuse.

Carthage and its sphere of influence

3:19Yes. Okay, interesting. And so let's set the scene first of all with a background. So we're talking the early third century BC. Carthage, first of all, how powerful is Carthage, and how large is Carthage at that time? Carthage is an important city. It is a big city on the north coast of Africa. It's jutting out into the center of the Mediterranean, so it's a city that controls a lot of the seaways, back and forth, east and west, and north and south.

3:50It's been allied to the west part of Sicily since the beginning of its existence, and also to, you have to think geographically, the southern bit of Sardinia. So all of these places were Carthaginian allied territories, even the Aeolian islands, which are just north of Sicily itself, between Italy mainland and between Sicily, too, is part of Carthaginian allied territory. So that's Carthage's sort of central Mediterranean link,

4:24and it's so close from Carthage up to the west part of Sicily. It's very, very, you know, it's not a long sail, but it's also, and on a clear day, you can see, you know, North Africa from Sicily, from higher parts, you know. So it's actually a really easily and important territory for Carthage. But Carthage is also controlling, we think, through allies, rather than direct territorial control, quite a bit of space along North Africa as well.

4:54So it's a power. It's an important power. Its allies are often Phoenician-speaking peoples from the western Mediterranean. But also many Greek-speaking peoples on Sicily are also allied to the Carthaginians. It's not super clear cut that just because you're Greek-speaking, you're allied to the bigger Greek cities, and just because you're Phoenician-speaking, you're allied to Carthage. That really simplifies things. Sicily is a big mix of indigenous people called the Limnians,

5:25also Sickels. So Carthage has allies who are both Phoenician-speaking in cities like Palermo and Trapani and Lilibaeum, which is modern Marsala, and also allies who are indigenous Sicilians, really. Carthaginian-aligned cities in Sicily, hopefully we'll have a map up. I mean, you mentioned some of them there, like Lilibaeum. Panormus is the ancient name for Palermo, correct? And the other one I think of is Mottia,

5:55from many centuries before. The Carthaginians have been there for a long time. For a long time. The Carthaginians and the Phoenicians, who founded a lot of these sites, have been there for a long time. Mottia was a foundation of the Phoenicians, probably in the 8th century BC, that becomes allied to the Carthaginians, but then gets destroyed in the late 4th, early 3rd century, in a rather epic siege between a Greek Syracusan tyrant and the Carthaginians sort of battling over the control

6:26of this island off of the island. And it's classic Phoenician island, port city, just off of a larger island. So it's in a bay, it's protected, so you can pull your ships into the bay, and it's an amazing place. It was walled, highly developed urban infrastructure, temples, absolutely spectacular city, but it is destroyed in a long siege by the Greek tyrant Dionysius.

6:57And the interesting thing is, is that it's never completely abandoned, because there seems to be a sacred temple there to the god Baal, but the Carthaginians move their center of operations to a new city, and that's when Lilibeum, which is modern Marsala, is founded. And so they're intricately connected. So although Moccia is still occupied at some level, main center for that southwestern part of Sicily moves to Lilibeum. Lilibeum.

7:27And I think the most important point to highlight, isn't it, when setting the scene for the First Punic War, is that Carthage has had a presence in Sicily, particularly in the western part of Sicily, for centuries before we get to the 3rd century BC, fighting against Greeks and the Sicilians, but the Carthaginians have been there. They've been there, and not only have they been there, is that from our very, very first treaty that we know of between the Carthaginians and the Romans that dates. Yes, which we'll get to, yeah. Yes, to right to the 6th century, to the very beginning of the Roman Republic, Sicily is mentioned as Carthaginian allied territory,

7:58automatically. So, yeah. And interesting, you've said you've never used the word Carthaginian empire. You said anything outside of Carthage, the city proper, whether it's in southern Sardinia or Sicily, Carthaginian allied territory. So, should we say Carthage has an empire in the early 3rd century BC? Oh, it's a very tricky subject, and I would hate to, you know, sort of leap too far one way or the other. I would say it's fair to say, for me, that you wouldn't actually speak about a Carthaginian empire per se,

8:30probably until after the First Punic War. I really think when we get to the Barcids and we get to Iberia and we get much more direct control that you really can say they have an empire of some sort with Hannibal, with Hannibal's father. It's a little bit tricky to know exactly what's going on in the relationship between the cities in the west of Sicily, Sardinia, other places in Carthage. We know they're allied and we know they're a sort of functional commonwealth. So, you know, if there's trouble in Sicily, everybody calls on the Carthaginians, Carthaginians, calls them in to defend.

9:02And there's key ports that are allied to Carthage and Carthage collects fees. They obviously are, I mean, I don't want to say they're running a racket, but in a way there's this idea of how their income functions is around sort of state support for ports. So is that an empire? I always don't know if we can. I mean, I wouldn't even know if we could call the Romans. We wouldn't call the Romans an empire at this point either, would we? So I wouldn't say.

The rise of Rome and the Pyrrhic War

9:27No, interesting. And let's move on to the Romans now briefly. So the Romans have been growing over the past century or so, by the beginning of the third century, to become a very powerful force in central Italy. And now they're looking further north and further south into the territory of the Greek cities, in particular Magna Graecia, so Tarentum. And then, of course, you've got Syracuse on Sicily too. So the Romans are growing at this point as we get to the third century BC.

9:58And so naturally their sphere of influence is creeping ever nearer that of the Carthaginians. It is. And it's really, I always think it's the Samnites. It's the Samnite wars at the end of the fourth and into the beginning of the third century that really solidifies Rome's expansive ideology into the south of Italy, which is what really concerns us here. And it is absolutely

10:28the defeat of the Samnites in very hard-fought wars. I mean, to be fair, the Samnite wars were quite intense for the Romans. And I think that sort of, all of a sudden, the Greek city states of Magna Graecia, it's called, around the arch of the heel, arch of the foot of Italy, are facing Roman power now instead of the buffer of the Samnites, which they have had for a long time. And so the Romans are expanding. And Rome is a big, important city at this period.

11:00Rome was a big, important city back in the sixth century. I mean, it was a substantial city with big public monuments, big temples. And so Rome is a big, powerful place as well. And then you get emerging onto the scene this fascinating figure who we can't sadly spend much time on at the moment. This warlord who comes across from Greece, Pyrrhus of Epirus, to go and help the Greek cities and maybe the Samnites and Lucanians and the like against the Romans. And, you know, you get the Pyrrhic War where he fights against the Romans with his elephants.

11:30And then he also fights against the Carthaginians as well. It's a fascinating story where he is almost this last chance saloon buffer against the expanding Romans, but then also has a go against the Carthaginians as well in Sicily. This is an interesting chapter and it's important to highlight because this is the last kind of great event where the Romans and Carthaginians are fighting against someone else. So the Romans and the Carthaginians have been allied since the 6th century BC. I love it. They are allied for so long before they actually become these great enemies. Yes, and it is Pyrrhus of Epirus

12:02who really is the trigger and to launch hostilities. But it's Pyrrhus' invasion of Italy at the Tarentines, the city of Tarentum, calls Pyrrhus in and asks for help against Rome. And of course, before that, the Epirots had come into Italy to help one Greek city-state fight against another Greek city-state and that sort of thing. But this is this big sort of invasion of Pyrrhus and the Romans fight these big battles

12:32and they, you know, Pyrrhic victories of course happen. So Pyrrhus wins but he doesn't really win because he's lost so many soldiers. And the Romans come back. They always come back. Exactly. And for the Romans and for the Carthaginians and perhaps for Pyrrhus himself, this is a really pivotal moment in the way in which Roman power is defined. And there's certainly all this echoes of Pyrrhus' lessons of fighting the Romans that the Carthaginians take on later

13:03when they fight successfully against the Romans. So it's quite an important moment in terms of the construction of the two powers as enemies, the Romans and the Carthaginians. But when Pyrrhus defeats the Romans in Italy, the Syracusans who are, again, as I always say, it's more of a threesome really in this war. They're always the Syracusans and they call the, they're like, hey, Pyrrhus is in town. He's in the neighborhood. Let's call him in and see if we can get him to help us against our old enemy,

13:34the Carthaginians. And it's really this, Pyrrhus coming to Sicily and Pyrrhus fighting the Carthaginians and the Carthaginians not showing up at all, doing abysmally against Pyrrhus. So they're literally beaten all the way back to Lilibam, their base on the southwest coast of Sicily and he leaves. So Pyrrhus just leaves. He's beaten the Romans but the Romans have come back really strong. He's beaten the Carthaginians and then he leaves Sicily and the Carthaginians sort of bounce back

14:05from their defeat and they really, you know, push themselves out across Sicily and we have the Romans right at the tip of Italy and the Carthaginians just at the northeast corner of Sicily and they really are facing each other across the Straits of Messina as we call them or the Straits of Messina. And this is why it's so important to cover Pyrrhus quickly because, yeah, he's that last kind of, that last dividing line

14:37between the Romans and the Carthaginians and there's that famous quote supposedly that he says when he leaves Sicily and of course it's said in hindsight knowing what will happen next but he says, I mean, oh, what a battlefield we are leaving remarking on Sicily itself for the Carthaginians and the Romans to fight over. But you're quite right by 270 BC Pyrrhus goes back to Greece the Romans come in they take control of the Greek cities in southern Italy Taranto all the way down to Regio ancient Regium and as you say so they're at the Straits of Messina

15:08they're on the right hand side and then Messina on the left hand side so you've got two Greek cities Messina and Regio Regium with the Carthaginians on one side and the Romans on the other

The trigger at Messina

15:19and this is a pivotal moment in what will happen next I mean, no longer are they separate from each other they are right on each other's doorstep they're spheres of influence Absolutely and they're facing each other and rumour has it our sources of course are a little bit confused or fragmentary for this period but there is in Polybius a mention of a treaty of Rome and Carthage actually allying

15:50over fighting Pyrrhus and you know they it's sort of the last time they sign a treaty in friendship against Pyrrhus and that's I think important too because it's it's this framework changes completely because all of a sudden there is no buffer there's nobody in between them but Messina or Messana as it is is the key point for the trigger because the people who are occupying that city

16:20itself who are called the Mamertines and who are a group of mercenary soldiers who have occupied Messina and they've taken the city and the king of Syracuse who is a king called Hierro II he's been trying to dislodge these rather disruptive mercenary soldiers who are really wreaking havoc on the countryside so Carthage doesn't own the city at the time this is almost like an independent city hold by these rogue mercenaries interesting but Carthage does control those islands

16:51just north Lipari yeah the Lipari or Aeolian islands today and they have a base there so they are very much connected to this north eastern part of Sicily but they don't actually control Messina at the time but what happens is the Mamertines are defeated by Hierro of Syracuse and they're like oh we don't really want to give up our city and half of the Mamertines who are a Campanian group of mercenaries so they're

17:22from mainland Italy southern Naples exactly and they are called the Mamertines because they worship the god Mammers and Mammers is the Oscan word which is the language of the people of the Campania in central Italy is their word for Mars the god of war the indigenous god of war and so they're named after the god of war they're mercenary soldiers they're living large in a sort of very fruitful environment that has existed in Sicily for mercenary

17:52soldiers and they're not really willing to give up their city and so some of the Mamertines appeal to Carthage to help them and another group appeal to the Romans to help them against Syracuse so they these two separate you know groups within this conglomeration of mercenaries appeal to the Romans and to the Carthaginians separately so the Carthaginians come and help their group from their base at Lipari they're really close by and they

18:23help take the city or secure the city of Messina for their supporters but also for themselves and then the Romans show up as well to take Messina and then that's really what we have is the beginning of conflict and how does that snowball into something bigger where the Romans and Carthaginians decide to actively fight each other so I think it's really interesting because what happens initially is that Syracuse and Carthage ally Hierro II and the Carthaginian generals in Sicily decide to ally against

18:53a Roman invasion and the Romans invade big time they turn up with big soldiers they're not just like oh we're going to just come over and help the Mamertimes they have both consular armies with them they literally show up with an invasion force so it seems to me that the story that we get in the Roman sources like oh the accidental empire that they've created is a little bit tricky because they do show up in force to take the city

19:24of Messina but also to be involved in Sicilian affairs and Polybius actually tells us at the very beginning of his history that he's going to take from his starting point the moment that the Romans cross for the first time into Sicily so the Roman historians see this moment of Rome's crossing the sea into Sicily as the beginning of their imperial expansion it's a big moment it's a big moment as you say the first time they cross into Sicily with military force is a full scale invasion

19:55tens of thousands of troops as recorded by our main source this fascinating Greek historian Polybius so yeah big moment big moment huge moment and I love the reaction of the Syracusans because Hierro is like first allied with Carthage they've been fighting each other off and on allied know each other really well and then he looks fairly skeptically at their Carthaginian ability and the Syracusan ability to deal with this massive Roman army and he

20:25turns around in allies with the Romans he makes a deal well you've seen how Pyrrhus easily beat those Carthaginians a decade or so earlier exactly so he makes a deal with the Romans after initial skirmishes and he makes peace with the Romans and from that moment on you have the Romans and the Syracusans so two significant powers allied in Sicily against the Carthaginians to me it's a miracle that the Carthaginians were managed to hold on to anything in Sicily for as long as they did we sometimes

20:56forget to think about this because they don't have a strong standing army in Sicily that's not the way they're operating they have some soldiers they have allied soldiers they have Carthaginian soldiers but they don't have this kind of massive force and now all of a sudden we have Rome allied with Syracuse we have Rome then with the Syracusan army at their disposal and also Rome has all of Syracuse's knowledge of how to fight Carthage at their disposal too no no that's so

21:26interesting and so important to highlight because I think I'm guilty of saying it myself even in the intro how it can be pitched as this great war between the two major powers of the western Mediterranean you've got the Carthage power and you've got Rome and you've made two clear points there first of all there are three major powers and how major a power you can actually say Carthage is at that time with its military strength that's very much up for debate absolutely I mean the Carthaginians are an important wealthy place in the in the central Mediterranean we know they are but we

21:57we see them perhaps as these great equals to Rome which which they do become they do rise to that occasion and there's no question the second the first Punic war sorry you know helps create them as this force that can fight the Romans but they probably aren't that force when this war starts and I think that's super interesting too because we always want to think about the adaptability of the Romans because the Roman sources tell us this story but perhaps we also need to think a little bit

22:28about that resilience and adaptability of the Carthaginians to to really understand how this could have been such a big epic war for 20 odd years and been fought in the way it was fought because both sides you know the equality was definitely there well you said 20 years so you've got a bit to get through so let's keep going no but it's very important to highlight all of this first of all but I mean for the Romans you know getting control of Messina with the Mamertines and then Hero II and the Syracusans allying with the Romans

22:58all of a sudden the Romans have got friendly territory along that eastern side of Sicily and I'm guessing probably also because of all the successes they've gained over recent decades in their expansion they're thirsty for more can they sense sense blood can they sense that Sicily is theirs for the taking I think they do they must and I think it's interesting because what happens is the war is a long war as we've said but it's sort of fought in phases and it's fought around Sicily going clockwise

23:30so if you start from Messina and then you go down towards Syracuse and then you come along the south shore and then you go across and up to the last battle on the northwest and if we if we think about it that way they have they've crossed over they've got the west they've got all these these allied resources now and they basically want blood but they also want wealth and Sicily is home to a lot of very prosperous very sophisticated cities and that's really

24:01where we see the beginnings of some of the the key battles we have a couple of key land battles that focus on prosperous cities and then we we have the beginnings of big naval battles as well so

The siege of Agrigento

24:32the Romans they started well and now they march west towards another of those prosperous cities on the mainland of Sicily and this is a place that people might know the name of today because it has this valley of beautiful ancient Greek temples Agrigento or Agrigento Agrigento today Agrigentum in Latin Akrakas Akrakas in the Greek the crab symbol isn't it yes one of the valley of the temples there is so incredibly well preserved isn't it so people yeah

25:02may have seen that or gone and it is one of the big moments early in the war for two reasons I think that it's depicted as such by our key sources one is that it's a big city big walled city and an old historic rival of Syracuse as well an old historic rival of Syracuse but also occupied at this point by the Carthaginians so the Carthaginians have Agrigento at this point and the Romans laid siege Romans and Syracusans lay siege to it and the Carthaginians

25:33really hire a whole new army in order to deal with this situation and they land and they encircle the besieging army of the Romans and so we have early in the war this sort of story of a really incredible siege of this very famous beautiful city decorated with monumental temples and it's a long and complicated story in which it gets very much into the gory details of the starving

26:03people inside and the attempts by Carthaginian generals to break the siege of the Romans and the eventual sort of Roman garrison the Carthaginian garrison inside of Agrigento busting out to try and beat the Romans losing and then the city is left open to the Romans and the Romans were told although of course this must be an exaggeration enslave the whole population 50,000 people and sack the city

26:34and it's this idea in the Roman sources of the wealth of Agrigento being paraded through Rome in a triumph that becomes the moment when the Roman people support this effort and war in Sicily so I think that's important to talk about is that up until then they were maybe we get the impression the Roman people were a little skeptical about the Roman endeavors in Sicily but all of a sudden they see all this wealth flooding back into the city and of course all these enslaved people and all of this happens

27:05and so yeah it's sort of the first big urban city to fall Not good for the Carthaginians at the moment but Carthage is well Phoenician heritage a maritime power so does it look to the sea to fight back?

Naval warfare and the Corvus

27:20Well it does so the first key battle on the sea now Carthage would really prefer we think to fight naval battles and they're incredibly adaptable maritime power so they fight using really skilled sailors and they build ships really quickly and well and in fact we're told that the Romans adapt their navy when they build it in this period to Carthaginian standards

27:50because the Carthaginians are building the sort of best standard warships at the time but interestingly at this first battle in Mylai which is the Malazzo Peninsula now that sticks up in the north of the island of Sicily off the Malazzo Peninsula Mylai the first battle is fought between the Carthaginians and the Roman navies and it's this new adaptation of the Romans which is called the corvus

28:21that our historians focus on and the corvus means crow and it's like a boarding bridge so the Romans have taken Carthaginian standardized ships we think and added these bridges in which they can grapple onto the enemy ships and then they can have their marines cross over and fight more in a kind of land battle style Yes, turning a sea battle into a land battle with this grapple thing Yes This is all part of the narrative of the first Punic war that the historians

28:51focus on there are some pretty difficult questions to be answered about this but nonetheless the corvus is always focused on as one of the key moments where the Carthaginians don't seem to know what to do and they don't really adapt very well and they lose the battle of Mylai quite significantly a number a number of ships are lost and these ships are filled with soldiers and up until the first Punic war ramming was the way in which naval battles were won

29:21or lost so the Carthaginians were excellent at that they were super skilled with their rowers and they could maneuver their boats really well and so they would often have the advantage in a naval battle because of this but this corvus then allowed the Romans to kind of take the advantage away from the Carthaginians so they seem surprised by the Roman adaptation and they lose that battle So it's really not looking good for Carthage they've been beaten on land and at sea

29:52with this new innovation of the Roman fleet and I think that first battle sat over 100 ships on either side as well these are not small naval battles that are happening the Romans are at sea from the beginning with their innovative fleet and are the Romans just emboldened further like this is looking good

The Roman invasion of Africa

30:10for us Well they are exactly and you know the loss of Agrigento on the south coast gives them access then to a port on the south coast and from there the Romans decide that well what we should really do now is head to Africa We're going even further already it's like why stop here we've got Africa the next stop and we go back to this idea that the Romans have the Syracusans on side because

30:40at the end of the 4th century there had been a Syracusan invasion of Africa under their tyrant Agathocles and the Romans really followed this exact playbook so they must have got this idea either from studying what Agathocles did or from people in Syracuse who knew exactly what needed to happen and Pyrrhus likely also had a similar idea a similar plan as well so they're all following that same Syracuse playbook how do you defeat Carthage you go to Africa you take their allies away from

31:10them and Carthage itself as the city becomes much more vulnerable and it stops the Carthaginians from being able to reinforce their troops in Sicily so that's what the Romans intend to do and they gather a massive force so hundreds supposedly of ships hundreds 350 is the number I think on both sides which again is just hard to believe now of course we have to remember this is taking place over 10 15 years it's not all happening in the

31:41same year all these battles and then the recovery from them the rebuilding of fleets that has to happen for the destroyed ships all this stuff is taking quite a few years but we are in around the 250s early 250s when this battle is taking place off of the south coast of Sicily near a place called Eknomis Cape Eknomis and we have the two sides gathering together there the Romans to invade Africa and the Carthaginians to try and stop them

32:11so the Carthaginians they know that they're preparing for this invasion they're like we have to stop this from happening the Carthaginians are as aware as everyone else is by this point about how vulnerable they are in Africa and this is a theme all the way through these histories is the Carthaginians want to stop invasions of Africa they know that it's very difficult for them to defend the countryside there and so the Romans gather near Agrigento and the Carthaginian fleet comes over lands at Lilibeam and then makes its way around the south

32:42coast from the west so we have the Romans coming from the east and the Carthaginians coming from the west along the south coast of Sicily what happens they meet in this epic battle I mean supposedly now it's only if we really truly believe the numbers and of course we know that's always a little bit tricky to do but they supposedly this is the largest sea battle ever fought in terms of marine sailors ships

33:12and everything else bigger than anything else that has ever happened since I don't know if that's actually true or not but even if we reduce down the numbers to something practical we're still talking about a hundred thousand or something of soldiers and sailors and marines and everything else but the Romans are loaded up for an invasion so they have ships with horses on them they have troops and supplies so they don't just have naval vessels

33:42for fighting military and naval battles but they have supply ships so it's huge it's a massive battle and it's close fought it's very close the story is quite interesting because it's quite intricate in Polybius so perhaps somebody was watching from the coast which would be amazing if they were yeah it's like almost an eyewitness because the description is of different groups sort of breaking off and battling in different places eventually though supposedly the Corvus Wyns

34:13and the Carthaginians are defeated and the Romans regroup and sail across Africa and once again the innovation of the Corvus is credited as being a big part of why they win the Romans able to board the Carthaginian ships and then fight on the ships like that seems to have made it almost impossible for the Carthaginians to manoeuvre properly which makes sense if you've grasped on and grappled onto an opposing ship you can hold it in place so they win that major major battle and so the route is clear

34:45for the Roman invasion force to go ahead and land in Africa yeah and the Carthaginians lose hundreds of ships so tens of thousands of soldiers and the Romans cross over into Africa and they land up on the area that we call Cap Bon today the beautiful cape or the good cape and that's sort of across the bay of Tunis on the east side of the mainland of what is Tunisia today is where they seem to have landed and that's also where the previous invasion had landed

35:16as well this is a really prosperous agricultural area not too far from Carthage but outside of the you know the sort of local area of Carthage so it's an area that's got small towns and rich agricultural villas and things like that many Carthaginians surely must have thought by that time that the writing was on the wall for them absolutely I mean the Romans were they landed they are pretty much unstoppable

35:46they they take the cities that are on the coast they loot the countryside they march towards Carthage they are you know the Carthaginians send out another army to to meet them and they get defeated there you know it's looking really bad for the Carthaginians it's always incredible to think about how it's possible to raise and continue to raise all the soldiers that we have I want to big up the emphasis of that because it feels like the Romans are literally knocking on the door

36:17of Carthage on the walls on the gates of Carthage but of course the famous fall of Carthage happens more than a century later so what happens well the Carthaginians just keep coming back as well this time they have they've you know been they're they're very desperate things are really desperate they always talk about Diodorus Siculus tells us about the fact that the Carthaginians draped their walls of their city in black when they've lost a sea battle so after Echnomas of course

36:47the city of Carthage would have been draped in black and I mean all the families who were involved in sea battles would have been affected and they've done a terrible job defending the countryside we have evidence that this city on the northwest coast of Tunisia called Kerquan that gets destroyed in this period so it's a really destructive invasion but they regroup and they send an expedition off to the eastern Mediterranean to recruit a new army from where Phoenicia

37:18from all over Greece Phoenicia from they recruit soldiers we think from the Iberians the Ligurians lots of Greeks in all of Asia miners ships going everywhere all over the place and of course they have allies who are fighting for them in Africa the Numidians but the Numidians you know they live in this landscape that's being pillaged and destroyed by the Romans so there's another discussion that they have to have about what

37:49makes sense for them in terms of saving themselves and so the yeah the Carthaginians not only recruit new soldiers but they recruit a new commander and his this is a Spartan whose name is Xanthippus and he sort of steps back and reorganizes the Carthaginian military and restructures the way they're using their elephants which we have only just briefly touched on but it is of course Pyrrhus who is the first time that

38:20the Carthaginians start to use elephants is after the Pyrrhic Wars so that's interesting yes the Carthaginians had not used elephants before but they see Pyrrhus bringing these big Indian beasts across Carthaginians realizing that they have a smaller African cousin available to them exactly and so by the time we get to Xanthippus and the Roman invasion we have elephants being used by the Carthaginians as well and so this becomes the way in which the Carthaginians fight back and it goes in

38:50what the Spartans have been doing for more than a century by this time they don't send an army they send one man I think they did it with the Syracusans the Athenian expedition to Sicily and now they've done it with Xanthippus coming to help the Carthaginians and enacting these reforms

Defeat in Africa and Regulus

39:10and does it work? Well it does I mean he's successful and he destroys the Romans and the Roman consul Regulus is captured by the Carthaginian army that this new Carthaginian army that Xanthippus restructured is so interesting the Spartan stuff I think is fascinating again and other people who somehow are always playing somehow just second fiddle to all these narratives yet they do keep turning up all the time and there's such an interesting study about that

39:40and we know that the Carthaginians are schooled in Greek tactics by Greek tacticians and so yeah Xanthippus is this example of saving Carthage by the you know restructuring really and reusing their forces and for the first time in this war Rome has suffered a devastating defeat tens of thousands of soldiers lost the expedition is lost the expedition is lost completely and the consul's been captured and so it's a catastrophic defeat

40:11and lives long in Roman memory this is a humiliation that the Romans have rarely suffered and it becomes this incredible moment where the the way in which the story and the relationship between Carthage and Rome is really defined in later years by Regulus this figure of Regulus and what happens and this defeat and all sorts of bad things happen to the Romans

40:41because the those who survive the remaining force a fleet is sent to pick them up off of the coast of Africa and that fleet is destroyed in a storm on the way back to Sicily so the Romans lose massive amounts of soldiers at sea their invasion force is destroyed and the consul is captured right so

41:23expedition to Africa a disaster nearly a great success but ends in total disaster for the Romans total disaster a great success if you're Roman an incredible relief if you're a Carthaginian they have managed to hold the line by you know extending themselves enormously and both sides are totally overextended economically this war has been going on for over a decade by now at least well over a decade and they

41:54also you know we start to see in Carthage that the coinage is devalued the silver content is devalued we see real economic impact of the war in the city of Carthage and the Romans for the first time are starting to feel that interesting so do they now sue for peace the Carthaginians oh okay send the consul regular the captured consul yes to negotiate peace with the Romans and it's just such a great moment

42:25of Roman rhetorical their own you know self reverence in a way and exceptionalism is that the Romans and Regulus himself goes into the Roman Senate and is like don't surrender these Carthaginians are ripe for the taking we can't surrender and of course Regulus is an honorable man and the agreement has been that if there's going to be no peace then he has to return to his captivity and he goes back and he ends up

42:55dying in horrific ways we think but these we don't know if this is true or not but yes put into like a box with iron stakes sticking into him and left to die or I mean there's a whole variety of different ways in which Regulus dies and it's really interesting because our credible sources don't really mention this so it's difficult to know how much of it is hyperbole but we do know that he dies in captivity he dies in captivity in Carthage and the

43:25peace is is rejected and the Romans fight on so this is the next phase kind of you know so you've had the initial Roman success alliance with Syracuse aggregate milae economis battle victories then you've had the disastrous invasion so it's almost like one all I would say maybe I'm being a bit I'm probably being a bit gracious to the Carthage Indians there possibly possibly yeah but now we're getting to the is it 250 or the 240s

Hamilcar Barca and the sacred chickens

43:54now BC

Hamilcar Barca and the sacred chickens

43:55and this is the next phase of the war so what's the big event that happens next so there's a couple of things there's a number of things that happen between the 250s and then 241 so the last nine years the last bit of the war it's focused on the west and northwest of Sicily it becomes the city of Panormus falls to the Romans Palermo today yes which is this huge natural harbour big harbour and it falls to the Romans and in

44:25247 BC the Carthaginians select a new commander to take the land battle off of to fight the land battle in Sicily and that is Hamilcar Barca and Hamilcar Barca is the father of Hannibal Barca so he enters the story at this point and it's actually interesting it's the same year that Hannibal is born well actually before that because I cannot have us not cover this story you know I'm going to ask what is

44:56the story of the sacred chickens of 249 BC that's true we have to cover the chickens yes the Romans lose another sea battle off of the city of Trapani today or Drapanum as it's called and that's on the northwest coast they've lost Panormus the Carthaginians have lost Panormus the Romans have taken it and again the Carthaginians are not succeeding very well at land

45:26or at sea so the Roman land forces have taken a lot of the territory in the north and the sea forces muster again to raise another fleet both sides to fight this battle the Roman consul who's leading the fleet is Tiberius Claudius Pulcher and he's a famous Roman consul from an old Roman family and the way that this story is told it really

45:56focuses on this character it focuses on his arrogance it focuses on his sort of disdain for the traditions of Roman warfare and we can always tell when our Roman sources are doing that something bad has happened the Carthaginians have raised another fleet and this fight is going on if they lose Drapanum Drapanum is another important port it would just be really the end of the story and in 249 this big

46:27Roman fleet is brought to fight the Carthaginians off of the west coast it supposedly includes slaves being recruited into the navy because there are so few recruits available to the Romans even so Rome is having manpower problems Rome is having financial problems Carthage is having financial problems so this seems to be and it's built up to be this last gasp the consul Tiberius Claudius

46:58is trying to do all the you know the correct rituals before the sea battle is fought and he's on his ship the fleet commanding ship probably a seven so a big ship with seven banks of oars and he has chickens and these chickens are supposed to give him the auspices so the chickens eating in a certain way will tell the consul or the people who are reading the auspices the omens whether or not the battle should be fought that day the chickens have to eat the chickens

47:29have to eat the grain that they're given or you can't fight the battle it would be bad luck and that's the story and supposedly as the story goes Tiberius Claudius the chickens won't eat the chickens won't eat and he's absolutely fed up so he picks up the chickens he said well if they won't eat maybe they'll drink and he throws them into the sea and this is viewed by the Romans as the most atrocious thing that could happen and of course what happens afterwards is the defeated the Roman fleet off of Japan and Rome scoots back

47:59to Rome and they don't turn up again with another fleet for eight years so they learn their lesson it's a disaster for the Romans and it's an amazing story it's a great story because of the chickens it's a great story because of consular arrogance it's an amazing story because it turns up in various sources much much later like Suetonius is the one who talks about you know the recruitment issues that he faces Tiberius Claudius so it's really fascinating tale about the

48:30Romans and their superstitious beliefs and why they lose battles and it is all about the gods we forget that sometimes all about the gods all about the chickens in that case but we had to cover the story but continuing on as you say so Palermo has fallen on land the Romans are doing well on sea yes okay the defeat of Japan has stopped the Romans for a bit of time we'll come back to the naval sphere in due time though of course we will but you mentioned

49:00before we did that chickens detour that the Carthaginians 248 247 they bring in a new general with a new strategy and he is the father of Hannibal Barker this is the legendary figure of Hamilcar Barker yes exactly and I think it's important too of course Drapanum is a key part in this moment because the loss of the Roman navy Drapanum means that the Carthaginians have free reign of the sea on the west coast and this is really important because they have been

49:30having to negotiate the Roman fleets up until this moment but Drapanum is a crisis for the Romans and they really disappear from the sea for quite a long time so the Carthaginians feel that they've got a bit of free reign here that they can start to build up forces on land again and perhaps try and take on the Romans and they send Hamilcar Barker the legendary leader Hannibal's father this great general perhaps somebody who has come into Carthaginian society more recently

50:02some people think that he is a soldier who's migrated into Carthaginian society in the fourth century BC from recent studies and he leads a group of soldiers who are called in Polybius Mix-Helenes so they're a group of soldiers who come from North Africa who are Greek and Phoenician we think origin Greek Libyan Phoenician origin soldiers and Hamilcar brings this group and they start to fight a guerrilla war against the Romans and they occupy

50:33the heights above Drapanum but also Palermo as well or Panormus and they start to fight guerrilla war against the Romans to quite a great success actually and so he's very successful it's the first time really the land armies of the Carthaginians have done well against the Romans and he builds up quite a relationship with them with this sort of victory but he also takes the heights of Erex as it's called and again we

51:04always forget about how important religion is in war in this part and time in this time in the world and the chickens story tells us one thing but also Erex is this incredibly important temple complex and mountain that's above the city of Drapanum on the northwest coast of Sicily and it was the home of a sanctuary to the goddess Aphrodite and that goddess was worshipped by the Carthaginians and the Phoenicians as a starte and this is a sacred mountain

51:34and Hamilcar takes the temple complex and it's this idea of again calling the god to your side goddess taking the power of the deity that really is important too in the way in which these battles are remembered and so there's pretty fierce fighting over Erex between the Hamilcar and also the Roman forces which hold on to part of the mountain and so they are battling over this sacred ground in this period and this continues on then for the next few years really

52:06Hamilcar is very well supplied because the Carthaginian fleets can come and supply him but it's a bit of a stalemate so the Carthaginians can keep fighting because they have control of the sea and Hamilcar is holding ground on land

The Battle of the Aegates Islands

52:20so surely the Romans must realize right if we're going to cut off the Carthaginians once and for all we need to regain supremacy on the sea in the sea absolutely Carthaginian Carthaginian can't hold Sicily if they are defeated in a naval battle I mean that's been proven over and over again in this war Carthage is struggling they've sued for peace a number of times after Depanem after the invasion every time they've won any set of victory they offer peace and of course we've seen

52:51this as the modus operandi the Romans refused any kind of peace in which they aren't the victors and so in 241 the Romans have managed to gather together another massive navy and they are ready to launch again in try to defeat the Carthaginians I think it's really interesting if we think about 249 to 241 eight years that amount of time it's taken them to regroup

53:22the amount of time that we're talking about to raise the kind of forces in which they're raising to build the ships we often don't think about time in the same way so they've taken all this time to regroup and rearm and to rebuild another fleet and the Carthaginians have their fleet as well ready and prepared they probably know that the battle is coming as you say if it's been many many years to prepare well it's interesting it seems that they're a little surprised by the Romans there's been

53:52raiding going on of course on the coast of Italy as well by Carthaginian sort of individual ships raiding coastal areas it's not just been in Sicily and we don't really know exactly how much the Carthaginians are aware of Roman plans but there's no question that when the final battle takes place which is called the Battle of the Agati Islands which happens in 241 the Carthaginian fleet is surprised by a Roman fleet which hides itself behind

54:23one of the Agati Islands and comes out and attacks the Carthaginian fleet which is loaded down with supplies for resupply for Hamilcar and these are hundreds of ships so the Romans have hidden hundreds of over a hundred ships right yeah and then they all I'm just trying to reimagine the scene quite a quite a moment when you just see the prowls of those ships emerge behind the island and surprise the Carthaginian fleet and the havoc and destruction that quickly follows right it's absolutely amazing and what what what

54:53always surprises me is if you go up to Eriks go up to Eriks today on a clear day you can see all of this very very clearly you can see the Agati Islands you could have seen the battles certainly happening you could actually say the ships came from over there the ships there and the ambush there and actually you'd be where Hamilcar was so he was just watching from the land as he saw this disaster unfold you think I think so I think so he would have seen the ships coming out from behind Maritima one of the islands and attacking

55:23at Levanzo the Carthaginian fleet and the Carthaginian fleet is ambushed attacked and it's pretty disastrous as far as we know according to the sources they lose number of ships and they can't continue they give up after this battle in 241 they sue for peace they say okay that's it we can't fight anymore and I guess we have to mention the other thing with this battle we know exactly where it happened because this is one of those rare amazing cases

55:53where the archaeology of the battle site has survived beneath the waves it's so cool that we have found this battle site is absolutely amazing and it's so interesting because it answers questions and it brings up lots of questions but underwater archaeologists searching the seabed floor off of the island of Levanzo which is one of the Agati islands the northern most found these big bronze rams and this has been over the past 20 years these excavations

56:23have unfolded and they found all these these rams that have were attached to ships that were sunk in this battle and we know this because some of them are stamped with the Roman consul's names and other ones have punic inscriptions and sculptures on them and we have helmets these Monte Fortino type helmets that the both sides would have been used both sides if you think about it because Monte Fortino is a Celtic kind of helmet

56:55and the Carthaginians used Celtic soldiers too so it's interesting we don't know which side they belong to but they both would have used them and we have the helmets and we have the rams and we have the ceramic vessels the amphorae that were on some of the ships and so it's absolutely astounding that we can see scattered across the seabed the detritus of this incredible battle in which many soldiers' lives were lost and marines and ships were sunk and it was again close fought

57:26you know could have gone either way but the Carthaginians lose this battle the more of their ships are sunk according to our sources and they sue for peace what a story and the archaeology part of that is just fantastic but the

The peace treaty and aftermath

57:42Romans win the Carthaginians lose and for the Carthaginians they now know the game is up so what happens next the Roman the Roman consul the Roman consul whose name is Lutatius is the one who creates the peace Hamilcar is left on the heights of Eryx at this point and he is not he negotiates the peace and then he goes back

58:13to Carthage we think and the city of Lilibeam which is the big Carthaginian city that is left is handed over to the Romans as are the rest of the territories and so there's a general a Carthaginian general in Lilibeam whose name is Mago and he is left to sort of deal with the intricacies of demobilization because they have a land army and they have ships still and soldiers and population and all that and so the Romans it's sort of we have

58:43an insight into this kind of formal process a treaty is designed it's called the Treaty of Lutatius it's 20 years it sets out that the Carthaginians will pay a war indemnity every year for 20 years to the Romans and that Carthage will lose Sicily and all its possessions on Sicily and that it retains its territory in Africa and it also retains the territories in Sardinia at this point at this point

59:14it's really interesting because for centuries Carthage has had a presence on Sicily but now with that treaty with the defeat against Rome in the first Punic war Carthaginian control over Sicily has ceased completely it's a big moment yeah hundreds of years and we can't cover it now but of course you did hint at that briefly Sardinia remains in control of the Carthaginians but not for long because the Carthaginians they have problems straight away with the mercenaries there's the mercenary war which is another

59:45episode in its own right and then the Romans take advantage of a delay in one of the payments to kind of trick the Romans into giving them control of Sardinia which I think even the Roman writers think was a bit a bit of a dick move there I think absolutely it's so true exactly what it is even the Romans criticized the Romans on this one you just know where the Romans are really badly behaved when that happens but yes it leads into chaos for Carthage it's chaos within their

1:00:16home territories within Africa it's not just a mercenary war but it's a rebellion of its allied territories in Africa but really the loss of Sicily is devastating for Carthage as its idea and conceptualization of itself as getting control of that central Mediterranean zone but you still got the likes of Hamilcar there you've got the young Hannibal Barker as well soon to rise and Carthage has suffered a very very bloody nose but it will rise again it will indeed I think that's a

1:00:46story for another day but Eve this has been absolutely fantastic this is only part of Carthage's amazing story which you cover the whole tale of Carthage in your most recent book it is called indeed the Carthage a new history of an ancient empire and that came out last year and it's in paperback now and yeah the whole history of Carthage not just the Punic Wars so other things too but yeah more Punic Wars to come it just goes to me to say as always thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show thank you Tristan a pleasure

1:01:17thanks so much for joining us on the ancients today I hope you enjoyed the episode and if you are loving the ancients then why not become a history hit subscriber as a subscriber you will have access to hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a new release every week plus early access and ad-free podcasts you can sign up at historyhit.com slash subscribe see you in the next episode