The ancient Roman wars had a lot to do with how Rome is today. Back in about 200 BC is when some of the most bloody and gruesome wars were fought. Back then Rome was a lot more advanced than almost any other country because of their leaders and the weapons they had when they were fighting.  

   The First Punic War was fought against the people of Carthage. This war was fought from 264-241 BC. The Punic War was fought in order for whichever army one would gain control of Sicily. In order to get to Sicily to fight the Carthaginians, the Romans had to cross the straites of Messina on two legions. When the Romans got to Sicily they had to fight off Syracuse and easily won but in order to keep Sicily the Romans still had to fight the Carthaginians. When the Romans and the Carthaginians fought, it was one of the hardest sea battles in ancient times. When the Romans would fight sea battles they would use things called crows. The crows were tied to the mast and when ships were close enough, the Romans would drop in onto the other ship creating a type of a walkway onto the other ship so the Romans could rush over and attack. The Romans ended up defeating the Carthaginians. After the war the Romans had lost almost all of their ships and almost all of their fleet. After a while the Carthaginians had invaded Spain, and Spain called for help to the Romans. 

   The second Punic War was fought from 218-201 BC.  In the war General Hannibal was Rome’s greatest enemy because he was the leader of the Carthaginians. General Hannibal was probably one of the greatest leaders of all time. The Carthaginians surprised Rome when they decided to cross the Alps. The only setback for Carthage was when Hannibal decided to cross the Alps with forty thousand men and thirty-seven elephants, they lost nearly one-third of their army from cold and avalanches. Instead of marching his men into Rome, Hannibal decided to march into Southern Italy because he thought his army might be too weak to attack Rome. The Roman general at the time, Fabius Maximus, discovered what Hannibal was doing and decided to burn all of the crops around that area so Hannibal’s army would starve. The Romans were not happy that Fabius didn’t attack so he was replaced with people who went in for battle. The Romans ended up suffering the bloodiest and greatest loss in all of Roman History. While all of this was going on the Romans and Carthaginians were still fighting in Spain.

   The Romans were under the command of a general named Scipio who was a great general and had been studying Hannibal’s tactics for a long time. The Romans ended up defeating the Carthaginians out of Spain. The Romans returned to Carthage to try and gain control of it. Fifty years after the war ended, Carthage started to become very rich again and decided to fight the Romans again. The two armies fought for three years and ended up defeating Carthage.

   I think that the ancient Roman wars are very interesting and fun to learn about. All of the battles that the Romans fought were amazing and the weapons and artillery were very interesting. Hopefully all of the wars I have talked about will show you have brave and willing to fight Rome really was.