What were the three Punic Wars about?
The Punic Wars were a series of three wars fought between Rome and Carthage. They are known as the Punic Wars because the Latin term for Carthaginian was Punici (older Poenici, from their Phoenician ancestry). The main cause of the Punic Wars was the clash of interests between the existing Carthaginian Empire and the expanding Roman republic. The Romans were initially interested in expansion via Sicily, part of which lay under Carthaginian control. At the start of the first Punic War, Carthage was the dominant power on the Mediterranean, with an extensive maritime empire, while Rome was the rapidly ascending power in Italy. By the end of the third war, after the deaths of many hundreds of thousands of soldiers from both sides, Rome had conquered Carthage’s empire and razed the city, becoming the most powerful state of the Western Mediterranean. With the end of the Macedonian wars — which ran concurrently with the Punic wars — and the defeat of the Seleucid Emperor Antiochus III the Gre
