Trace How Carthage Became Almost The Equal Of Rome Essay

University of the People Greek and Roman Civilization Assignment Unit 5 Trace how Carthage became almost the equal of Rome. Be sure to show the strength of both and how this conflict led to Rome becoming a naval power. The foreign policy of Carthage was very different from that of the motherland. The Phoenicians had maintained an army of mercenaries, but had used them only to protect their country from the robber kings of Damascus and Jerusalem. They had many ships of war, but had used them only to convoy their round-bellied ships of trade and to keep off the attacks of the Greek and Etruscan pirates. Their settlements were merely fortified factories; they made no attempt to reduce the natives of the land. If their settlements grew into colonies …show more content…
The Carthaginians saw that they must resist or be ruined, and they went to war as a matter of business. They first put down the Etruscan rovers, in which undertaking they were assisted by the events which occurred on the Italian main. They next put a stop to the spread of the Greek power in Africa itself. The wealth of Carthage was much greater than that of Rome, but her method of making war was more costly, and a great deal of money was stolen and wasted by the men in power. In Carthage the highest offices of state were openly bought from a greedy and dangerous populace, just as in Pompey’s time tables were set out in the streets of Rome at which candidates for office paid the people for their votes. But at this time bribery was a capital offence at Rome. It was a happy period in Roman history, the interlude between two aristocracies. There had been a time when a system of hereditary castes prevailed; when the plebeians were excluded from all share in the public lands and the higher offices of state; when they were often chained in the dungeons of the nobles, and marked with scars upon their backs: when Romans drew swords on Romans and the tents of the people whitened the Sacred