The Punic Wars was a series of three wars fought between two of the Mediterranean’s superpowers: Carthage and Rome; the result of which changed the balance of power in the basin. Dr Kathryn Lomas, Honorary Research Fellow, Durham University, joins the show to explain what happened in the First Punic War.
Some topics explored
- Treaties that existed between Rome and Carthage before the war
- If one of the two armies were superior to the other
- A Greek settlement in the eastern half of Sicily
- What’s known about when and why the war started
- What Rome and Carthage’s territory was demarcated to leading up to the war
- What the strengths of both armies were prior to the war
- Carthage General Hamilcar Barca (Hannibal Barca’s father)
- What happened during the battle
- The four key stages of the battle
- How the war ended
- Quintus Fabius Pictor and Polybius who chronicled the war
- Long-term implications that the result of the war had
Listen to the episode
The episode can be streamed below and is available on major podcast apps: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music.
Show Notes
- Dr Lomas has written many publications including authoring the books The Rise of Rome: From the Iron Age to the Punic Wars (Harvard University Press in North America, 2018; Profile Books in the U.K., 2018) and Rome and the Western Greeks, 350 BC – AD 200, Conquest and Acculturation in Southern Italy (Routledge, 2011)
Comments are closed, but trackbacks and pingbacks are open.