3497–3615 AM · 264 BCE — 146 BCE · world history
The Punic Wars and Hannibal
A century-long duel between Rome and Carthage ends with Carthage erased.
Three wars for the western Mediterranean. In the second, Hannibal marches an army with elephants over the Alps and annihilates Rome's largest field army at Cannae—but cannot take the city. Scipio carries the war to Africa and wins at Zama. In 146 BCE Carthage is burned and its land becomes a Roman province.
Sources
Documents of the period
- inscriptions and coinage of the Roman Empire — Roman victory monuments and coins from the time of the Punic Wars
Scholarship
- Roman authors: Tacitus, Suetonius, Livy — the war with Hannibal — Livy, books XXI–XXX; the fall of Carthage described by the eyewitness Polybius
Basis: documents and evidence.