CLA231H1 Lecture : First and Second Punic Wars.docx
Document Summary
Through a navy and strategic harbors that they held: not an agricultural society, influence did not penetrate inland. Phoenicians were a semitic people, with a semitic language known as punic. Worshipped gods and performed religious rituals which were completely foreign. Practiced child sacrifice, and burned babies alive. Capture of messana and seige of syracuse (264-261: messana separated the italian peninsula and sicily - was a shipping trade port, carthage had taken over messana, and locals appeared for rome to step in. In 264, rome entered messana - voted in the centuriate assembly for war with carthage. Captured in 262, and justified that this was a defensive act: rome motivated by money and/or sheer expansionism, after the couture, romans moved south and briefly laid seige to syracuse. One of the oldest and most powerful greek colony. Syracuse had recently had an alliance with carthage. Syracuse quickly surrendered and signed a treaty with rome.
