Punic Wars (Paperback)

The author of this book does a good job in being objective. He also points out to the reader that this book does not cover more of the social aspects of ancient Rome and Carthage; he is focused on the military and some of the political history which is obviously necessary in explaining the Punic Wars. Goldsworthy is consistently good at pointing out the strengths and weaknesses of the ancient sources, as well as the lack of information on certain topics. He does rely heavily on Polybius and Livy for example.

He sticks to his basic thesis in explaining warfare from the Roman and Carthaginian perspectives and how their mentalities shaped the resulting wars and the eventual and complete victory of Rome. It is an interesting analysis of how Rome was able to endure major losses and still push on until their opponent was utterly defeated or destroyed as in the case with Carthage by 146 BC.

The battles are well detailed, the reasons for war aptly explained and many of the major military and political figures of this time very ably discussed. The two that always stick in my mind are Hannibal and Scipio Africanus. Both best represented each side's most effective commander in the Second Punic War which was the one war in which Rome was most threatned.

These were massive wars and resulted in very heavy casualties. As with most wars, horrible atrocities were committed and should be discussed in order to show that war isn't always as glorious and romantic as it can sometimes be portrayed. Anyway, Adrian Goldsworthy's book is a work of professionalism.

For those, like me, who come to this book innocent of the late Roman Republic, Adrian Goldsworthy's account explains the background, politics and world of the 3rd and 2nd centuries BCE, and gives as much light as possible to figures whose life is shadowed by the lack of historical records.

With risk of oversimplification, the first Punic War was the almost inevitable clash between two growing empires, whose spheres of influence overlapped. Carthage and Rome first fought over Sicily, with the fighting spreading to Africa and to the Mediterranean. After several defeats, The Carthaginians agreed to a peace agreement, which put them in a clearly subordinate position to Rome. With fresh insult in the form of the Roman annexation of Sardinia in 238, Hannibal Barca started the war in Spain in 218, and then marched to Italy, to wage war in the enemy territory. Hannibal, and Carthage, failed, and the war ended with a treaty that put Carthage in a clearly subordinate position to Rome.

The last Punic war, and the destruction of Carthage, came from the paranoia of the Romans, immortalized by Cato's famous saying "Delenda Carthago". Carthage must be destroyed, and so it was.

'The Punic Wars' (or 'The Fall of Carthage', in the British edition) is a military history, detailing both specific battles and the general strategy of the three Punic Wars. For the most part, Goldsworthy does a good job summarizing and explaining the battles and movements of forces, as well as the disagreements between scholars about the exact locations of battles, and so on. However, some of the maps are clearly insufficient, especially as Goldsworthy never gives more then one map to any one battle, even the complicated ones, such as the confrontation between Hannibal and Scipio Africanus in Zama in 2002. Furthermore, there is a lot of discussion of various forms of ships, without a single diagram of them.

The overall theme of Goldsworthy's book is that the Punic wars were more then just clashes between Empires. They saw clashes between two different philosophies of war, or, if you will, cultures. The Carthaginians, as was customary at the time, fought in order to establish the power balance between the sides. A war was supposed to end with an agreement that will reflect this balance. The Romans, on the other hand, could not see different countries of city states as independent. The Romans fought total wars, which ended in either the subjugation of the destruction of the enemy. For the Carthaginians, loss was unfortunate, for the Romans it was inconceivable.

Only at one point during the Punic wars, there was a real chance of Roman defeat. After his remarkable victory in Canne in 216 BC, Hannibal chose not to go for Rome. "It is probably correct that Hannibal would have been unable to capture Rome if the defenders had put up any sort of resistance", Goldsworthy writes (p. 216). Still, "Hannibal now posted a greater threat to the Roman Republic then any other foreign power would ever do throughout its entire history". Would the Romans have withstood Hannibal at the peak of his power, or would they have agreed to sign a peace agreement? Had the Carthaginians won the Punic Wars, history would have been very different - but we will never know how close they were.