Carthage

Can someone please give me the rundown on Carthage and their conflict with Rome? I'm finding myself more curious about that era of history.

Other urls found in this thread:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macedonian–Carthaginian_Treaty
youtube.com/watch?v=jpGMSzgd8eg
twitter.com/SFWRedditGifs

Carthage was a very powerful city state in Northern Africa, and their interests were threatened, especially around Sicily and central Mediterranean trade routes, by the rise of Rome. They fought two major wars, both of which Rome won pretty decisively, and paved the way for Roman dominance over North Africa, what's now Spain, and provided cassus belli for the immediately following war against the Macedonians, which would extend Rome's grasp further east.

So wait, why would a war against North Africans provide cause for a war against North Greeks?

they were Phoenician traders from the Levant and had some of the best naval skills at the time. Apparently the first conflict with Rome arose when both powers came to help a city which was attacked by some warlord and allied to both. The carthagians defeated the attacker and their general didn't let the Roman army move into the city. That's how the first punic war started (but in reality Rome probably just got too powerful). The Romans weren't experienced with naval warfare back then but quickly built up their navy by copying captured Carthagian ships. They also invented the corvus bording bridge to enter enemy ships, which Carthage wasn't able to find an appropriate countermeasure for, so Rome won. Carthage felt insulted (because they had to give up land & payments to Rome), so when they recovered the second Punic war happened. This time there was a lot of regular land warfare, especially after Hannibal invaded Italy coming from the Alps with a large army and even war elephants. He was an ingenius general and managed to defeat several Roman armies. After defeating and almost completely annihilating a much larger Roman army at Cannae, Rome was at the brink of collapse. To their luck, Hannibal didn't receive much support from his homeland and eventually had to return to Africa. After recovering, the Romans invaded Tunisia and defeated Hannibal at Zama under Scipio Africanus. Carthage had to give up huge areas and pay large amounts of money to Rome. Some time later, the Romans decided to finish Carthage off once and for all, layed siege to Carthage city, destroyed it, killed or enslaved the entire population and allegedly even poured salt on the ground so that nothing would grow there anymore. The Carthagian empire was incorporated as a province of the Roman republic.

they were men of melanin descent who liberated themselves from white roman oppressors. The great black king hannibal was one of them

Semitic merchants hired an army of North Africans to invade Europe and destroy its civilization

...

Thanks for the clarification.

Macedonia sent Carthage some (pretty ineffective) help in the second Punic War. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macedonian–Carthaginian_Treaty

Once the Carthaginians were brought to heel, the Romans decided to send a punitive expedition to Macedon.

Why was Carthage, with the exception of Hannibal so absolutely shit at warfare?

From the Sicilian Wars to all three wars with Rome they got absolutely booty-blasted, why?