They are known as Punic Wars to a series of warlike conflicts that took place between 264 BC and 164 BC and that had as protagonists the two most important powers of the Mediterranean during that time, which were Carthage and Rome.
It is worth mentioning that Carthage was an important city that was located on the coast of present-day Tunisia which was established by the Phoenicians. This civilization had a huge maritime fleet, reason why they were considered to its inhabitants as great navigators. However, they did not have a permanent army since, according to their ideology, the Carthaginians chose to hire mercenaries who liberated their wars, being only the commanders who were indigenous to that city.
For its part, Rome did have a large and powerful army which was fighting battles in the northern region of Annexing Italy. However, its weakness was the naval-type infrastructures, which compared to the Carthaginians were quite inferior, therefore, it was almost impossible at first to act against them. The first of the Punic Wars took place between 264-241 BC. This confrontation took place on the island of Sicily, a site where large Greek colonies allied to Rome were located.
On the other hand, The Second Punic War in combination with the loss of the war and the costs of the war that they were forced to pay caused Carthage to see its economy collapse, therefore, they did not have the ability to pay mercenaries, seeing forced to resign itself to being a power of lesser caliber than Rome. Seeing that it was very difficult to pay the high tax rates, they asked the Senate of Rome for the possibility of expanding their influence towards the territory of Hispania, to try to obtain some resources and finish paying the debt.
Between 149-146 BC Carthage was eradicated. Mainly because of the fear that the Romans had that said people would rise up against the Empire again. By 201 BC it had been devastated both in the military and the economic sphere, and they were barely managing to pay tribute to Rome.
