including headings First Punic War, First Roman navy, Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica, New Carthage in Spain, Second Punic War, ...
The three wars between Carthage and Rome include astonishing Carthaginian successes - in particular the 15-year campaign of Hannibal in Italy, after his famous crossing of the Alps. But the end is disaster for...
The speed with which the crisis escalates into war suggests that both sides regard another conflict as inevitable. Hannibal forces the pace, taking the bold decision that his best chance of victory is to carry the war in...
Sicily, a large fertile island at a pivotal point in the Mediterranean, is one of the world's most desirable patches of land. Colonized by Phoenicians and Greeks, and fought over between Greeks, Carthaginians and Romans...
The traders of Marseilles extend a network of colonies along the coast, and so become the commercial rivals of the Carthaginians, the successors of the Phoenicians in Spain. This makes Marseilles the natural ally of Rome...
The natural flashpoint between the three powers is the nearest overseas territory to mainland Italy, the island of Sicily, exceptionally fertile and later known as the 'bread basket of Rome'. Its eastern section is a Gre...
The only way of increasing the all-important speed of a Phoenician warship is by adding more oarsmen. To some extent this can be achieved in a longer ship, but there comes a point at which extra length brings structural...
During the opening skirmishes of the first Punic War the Romans capture a Carthaginian warship which has run aground. It is of a kind only recently introduced in Mediterranean navies. As a quinquereme, with five banks of...
In the first Punic War (264-241) Rome wins the whole of Sicily, which becomes the first overseas province of the Roman empire. In the second (218-201) the Carthaginians are driven out of Spain, in spite of a dramatic ach...
Spain is a rich prize for any empire-builder. It has mines of gold, silver and copper, and a plentiful supply of Celts, tough warriors and useful recruits for an army. The Iberian peninsula is therefore hotly contested,...
Livy is on the whole uncritical of his sources (and anyway there are no sources to be critical of for the early centuries). His main interest, apart from the underlying one of glorifying Rome, lies in telling a dramatic...
The Mediterranean is the chief arena of European development from the 8th century BC. The focus at first is on the Aegean Sea. Here the civilization of Greece develops; from here Greek...
On 31 March 1683 a huge Turkish army marches west from Edirne. On the same day, in Warsaw, the Polish king John III Sobieski signs a treaty committing him to bring a force to the defence of Vienna. There is panic in the...
In the early months of 2000 the situation again spirals out of control in a renewal of civil war. There is panic as the violent men of the RUF move inexorably towards the capital, Freetown. In May the rebels seize 300 me...
The same nation, Germany, is the participant most actively responsible for each of the two wars. In 1914 this had been a panic reaction, through fear of losing advantage if not moving first. In 1939 it is the deliberate...
