Carthaginians and Romans

The Carthaginians were a very important civilisation on the Mediterranean in the Ancient Age. They were from the city of Carthage on the coast of North Africa, and they established trading routes and colonies around the Mediterranean Sea. Carthage was originally a Phoenician colony, which quickly became more powerful than the original city states of the Phoenicians, and they took control of most of their other colonies, and of areas under Greek influence, as both earlier civilisations were involved in wars.
The Carthaginians were famous traders, like the Phoenicians, and were excellent artisans as well. They were also very good warriors, and had the strongest navy in the Mediterranean.

As the biggest power in the Mediterranean, the Carthaginians came into conflict with the growing Roman Republic. Rome won a long war with Carthage and took control of their islands in the Mediterranean. Carthage already controlled some of the Iberian Peninsula’s coast, but after the first Punic War they conquered most of the peninsula. Eventually, the general Hannibal Barca attacked a city under Roman protection, Saguntum. After 8 months Saguntum surrendered and Hannibal marched north. The Romans sent an army to help Saguntum but Hannibal marched over the Alps to go around them and invade Italy. Hannibal won many victories in Italy, but his Brother Hasdrubal lost to Scipio Africanus and Hannibal had to leave Italy to defend Carthage. He was finally defeated by Scipio Africanus in North Africa. 

After this Second Punic War, the Roman Republic controlled most of the Iberian Peninsula. However it took almost two hundred more years for them to finally conquer the Celtic tribes in the northwest. The most important event in this very long war was at Numantia, a Celtic town that was captured by Scipio Aemilianus. However the Celts burned the town down before the Romans took it. 

When the Romans finished the conquest of Hispania, the Republic had ended and Rome was an empire ruled by Augustus, the nephew of Julius Caesar. Caesar was a great Roman general who conquered Gaul (France) for Rome, but he took power away from the senate and started a civil war that ended with the end of the Republic. 

Rome eventually controlled most of Europe, North Africa, and the Near East. They were able to do this because of their strong military and system of roads that let them travel quickly across their empire. 

Roman society was very similar to Greek society, but Romans thought military success was very important, and it was almost impossible to reach political success without military victories. 

The Emperor Trajan, who was considered the best of all Roman Emperors and a very successful soldier was born in Hispania. He led the empire to its maximum size, by conquering a lot of land in Asia.

The next emperor, Hadrian, was his cousin, and was also from Hispania. Hadrian is most famous for building a wall in Britain, between England and Scotland to keep the celts in Scotland out of Roman Britain.