Historical sources on the Punic Wars

Extract A

"I shall adopt as the starting-point of this Book the first occasion on which the Romans crossed the sea from Italy [to go to war outside their home territory]. This follows immediately on the close of Timaeus' History [the work of an earlier Greek historian] and took place in the 129th Olympiad [264-261 BCE, a Greek dating system that counted years in four-year cycles]. Thus we must first state how and when the Romans established their position in Italy, and what prompted them afterwards to cross to Sicily, the first country outside Italy where they set foot. The actual cause of their crossing must be stated without comment; for if I were to seek the cause of the cause and so on, my whole work would have no clear starting-point and principle." 

Extract B

"But fully aware as they were of this, they yet saw that the Carthaginians had not only reduced Libya [North Africa] to subjection, but a great part of Spain besides, and that they were also in possession of all the islands in the Sardinian and Tyrrhenian Seas. They were therefore in great apprehension lest, if they also became masters of Sicily, they would be most troublesome and dangerous neighbours, hemming them in on all sides and threatening every part of Italy." 

Extract C

"Not only had they no resources for it of reasonable sufficiency; but without any resources for it at all, and without having ever entertained an idea of naval war — for it was the first time they had thought of it — they nevertheless handled the enterprise with such extraordinary audacity that, without so much as a preliminary trial, they took upon themselves there and then to meet the Carthaginians at sea, on which they had for generations held undisputed supremacy." 

Extract D

"As their ships were ill-built and slow in their movements, someone suggested to them as a help in fighting the engines which afterwards came to be called 'ravens' [grappling devices used to board enemy ships]. They were constructed as follows: On the prow [the front of the ship] stood a round pole four fathoms [about 7.3 metres] in height and three palms in diameter. This pole had a pulley at the summit and round it was put a gangway [a walkway for crossing from one ship to another] made of cross planks attached by nails, four feet in width and six fathoms in length. In this gangway was an oblong hole, and it went round the pole at a distance of two fathoms from its near end. The gangway also had a railing on each of its long sides as high as a man's knee. At its extremity was fastened an iron object like a pestle pointed at one end and with a ring at the other end, so that the whole looked like the machine for pounding corn. To this ring was attached a rope with which, when the ship charged an enemy, they raised the ravens by means of the pulley on the pole and let them down on the enemy's deck, sometimes from the prow and sometimes bringing them round when the ships collided broadsides." 

Extract E

"There shall be friendship between the Carthaginians and Romans on the following terms if approved by the Roman people. The Carthaginians to evacuate the whole of Sicily and not to make war on Hiero [the Greek king of Syracuse, an ally of Rome] or bear arms against the Syracusans or their allies. The Carthaginians to give up to the Romans all prisoners without ransom. The Carthaginians to pay to the Romans in twenty years 2,200 Euboic talents of silver." 

Contextual information:

Polybius was a Greek historian born around 200 BCE in the city of Megalopolis in Greece. He was taken to Rome as a political hostage after Rome's defeat of Macedonia in 168 BCE, and there he wrote his history of Rome's rise to power, drawing on his access to Roman archives, his own travels, and interviews with people who had witnessed events firsthand. His account of the Punic Wars is considered the most detailed and reliable ancient source on the topic. 

Bibliographical reference:

Polybius. The Histories. (W. R. Paton, Trans.; 1922). (Vol. I, pp. 13, 27, 59, 61, 63, 131). William Heinemann. (Original work written ca. 150 BCE) 

Copyright: Public domain. 

Extract A

"The Phoenicians settled Carthage, in Africa [the northern part of the continent, which the Romans and Greeks called 'Africa' or 'Libya'], fifty years before the capture of Troy. Its founders were either Zorus and Carchedon, or, as the Romans and the Carthaginians themselves think, Dido, a Tyrian woman, whose husband had been slain clandestinely by Pygmalion, the ruler of Tyre. The murder being revealed to her in a dream, she embarked for Africa with her property and a number of men who desired to escape from the tyranny of Pygmalion, and arrived at that part of Africa where Carthage now stands." 

Extract B

"Proceeding from this start and getting the upper hand of their neighbors, as they were more adroit [skilled and clever], and engaging in traffic by sea, like the Phoenicians [the trading people from whom they were descended], they built a city around Byrsa [the citadel, or fortress hill, of Carthage]. Gradually acquiring strength, they mastered Africa and the greater part of the Mediterranean, carried war into Sicily and Sardinia and the other islands of that sea, and also into Spain. They sent out numerous colonies. They became a match for the Greeks in power, and next to the Persians in wealth. But about 700 years after the foundation of the city the Romans took Sicily and Sardinia away from them, and in a second war Spain also. Then, assailing each the other's territory with immense armies, the Carthaginians, under Hannibal, ravaged Italy for sixteen years in succession, but the Romans, under the leadership of Cornelius Scipio the elder [known as Scipio Africanus, who defeated Hannibal at the Battle of Zama in 202 BCE], carried the war into Africa, crushed the Carthaginian power, took their ships and their elephants, and required them to pay tribute for a time. A second treaty was now made between the Romans and the Carthaginians which lasted fifty years, until, upon an infraction of it, the third and last war broke out between them, in which the Romans under Scipio the younger [Scipio Aemilianus, who commanded the Roman forces at the final siege of Carthage in 146 BCE] razed Carthage to the ground and forbade the rebuilding of it." 

Contextual information:

Appian of Alexandria was a Roman historian of Greek origin who wrote in the second century CE, roughly 300 years after the First Punic War. His Roman History, written around 150 CE, surveyed Rome's wars against foreign peoples. His account of the Punic Wars is a summary overview rather than a detailed account, but it is the clearest ancient source for tracing the outcomes of all three wars in sequence. 

Bibliographical reference:

Appian. The Foreign Wars: The Punic Wars (H. White, Trans.; 1899).  (pp. 1, 2). The Macmillan Company. (Original work written ca. 150 CE) 

Copyright: Public domain.

"I consider myself at liberty to commence what is only a section of my history with a prefatory remark such as most writers have placed at the very beginning of their works, namely, that the war I am about to describe is the most memorable of any that have ever been waged, I mean the war which the Carthaginians, under Hannibal's leadership, waged with Rome. No states, no nations ever met in arms greater in strength or richer in resources; these Powers themselves had never before been in so high a state of efficiency or better prepared to stand the strain of a long war; they were no strangers to each other's tactics after their experience in the first Punic War; and so variable were the fortunes and so doubtful the issue of the war that those who were ultimately victorious were in the earlier stages brought nearest to ruin. And yet, great as was their strength, the hatred they felt towards each other was almost greater. The Romans were furious with indignation because the vanquished had dared to take the offensive against their conquerors; the Carthaginians bitterly resented what they regarded as the tyrannical and rapacious [greedy and violent] conduct of Rome. The prime author of the war was Hamilcar [Hamilcar Barca, Hannibal's father, who had commanded Carthaginian forces in the First Punic War and never accepted the defeat]. There was a story widely current that when, after bringing the African War to a close, he was offering sacrifices before transporting his army to Spain, the boy Hannibal, nine years old, was coaxing his father to take him with him, and his father led him up to the altar and made him swear with his hand laid on the victim that as soon as he possibly could he would show himself the enemy of Rome." 

Contextual information:

Titus Livius, known as Livy, was a Roman historian who wrote between approximately 27 BCE and 14 CE. His History of Rome covered the entire span of Roman history from the city's legendary founding to his own day. Books XXI to XXX deal with the Second Punic War against Hannibal, and Livy drew on earlier historians as well as Roman public records for his account. He wrote from a position of deep Roman patriotism and a keen interest in the moral lessons of history. 

Bibliographical reference:

Livy. History of Rome. (W. M. Roberts, Trans.; 1905). (Book XXI, p. 1). J. M. Dent & Co. (Original work written ca. 27–9 BCE) 

Copyright: Public domain.

"The victor-people of Italy, having now spread over the land as far as the sea, checked its course for a little, like a fire, which, having consumed the woods lying in its track, is stopped by some intervening river. But soon after, seeing at no great distance a rich prey, which seemed in a manner detached and torn away from their own Italy, they were so inflamed with a desire to possess it, that since it could neither be joined to their country by a mole or bridge, they resolved that it should be secured by arms and war, and reunited, as it were, to their continent. And behold! as if the Fates themselves opened a way for them, an opportunity was not wanting, for Messana [a city on the north-east tip of Sicily, immediately across the narrow strait from the Italian mainland], a city of Sicily in alliance with them, happened to make a complaint concerning the tyranny of the Carthaginians. As the Romans coveted Sicily, so likewise did the people of Carthage; and both at the same time, with equal desires and equal forces, contemplated the attainment of the empire of the world." 

Contextual information:

Publius Annius Florus was a Roman writer and historian who lived and wrote during the early second century CE, probably during the reigns of the emperors Trajan and Hadrian. His Epitome of Roman History was a brief summary of Rome's wars from the city's founding to the time of Augustus, drawn largely from Livy's much longer history. It was intended as a readable overview rather than a detailed scholarly account. 

Bibliographical reference:

Florus, P. A. Epitome of Roman History (Book I, Ch. 18, p. 85). (J. S. Watson, Trans.; 1889). George Bell and Sons. (Original work written ca. 120 CE) 

Copyright: Public domain.