1152 war and conquest: Rome The outcome of this conflict was by no means assured, particularly since Carthage was the great naval power of the period and Rome had no navy at all because the city’s wars had to date been conducted on the Italian mainland, generally inland When water transport was necessary to carry troops along the Italian coast, Rome turned to its allies on the Bay of Naples for ships and crews In order to win the First Punic War, Rome built its first fleet, modeling its ships on captured Carthaginian vessels The Romans developed a new device to aid them in this new type of warfare The corvus was a large gangplank that could be dropped onto an enemy ship A large spike at its end drove deep into the enemy’s deck Army legionnaires then crossed over the corvus to take the other vessel The device worked very well, allowing the Romans to use their greatest battle strength, close-quarter infantry fighting With the aid of the corvus the Romans defeated two Carthaginian fleets and won the First Punic War Despite two more wars with Carthage and other sea engagements, the republic never maintained a permanent navy When a fleet was needed, it was built, as for Pompey’s expedition in 64 b.c.e against the pirates of the Mediterranean Even when they existed, republican fleets often came to grief Led by commanders with no nautical experience, entire fleets were lost to storm and shipwreck It would not be until the empire that Rome would maintain a permanent navy, and even then the seafaring service would remain secondary to the army THE SECOND AND THIRD PUNIC WARS During the Second Punic War (218–202 b.c.e.) the Carthaginian general Hannibal (247–183 b.c.e.) crossed the Alps; after inflicting a series of devastating defeats on the Romans, most notably at Cannae, he and his army ravaged the Italian countryside Hannibal made no attempt to attack the city of Rome, perhaps because its walls, built after the Gauls’ capture of the city in 390 b.c.e., made Rome a difficult target Instead of continuing in its attempt to defeat Hannibal’s army, Rome tried a new tactic: It launched an attack on the city of Carthage Hannibal was recalled to defend his home, where he was overcome by the Roman general Scipio Africanus Major (236–184 or 183 b.c.e.) Carthage was destroyed in the Third Punic War (149–146 b.c.e.) Following their strategy of annihilating their enemies, the Romans captured the city of Carthage after a brief siege, sold into slavery those Carthaginians not killed, and razed the city to the ground When the Romans finished, nothing remained of the Carthaginians or their culture, and Rome was the most powerful state in the Mediterranean The Punic Wars left Rome in control of Sicily, North Africa, and parts of the Iberian Peninsula Over the next century they conquered and occupied the southern part of Gaul, Macedonia, Greece, and much of the Middle East Although Rome was still technically a republic, it was by the first century b.c.e an empire in all but name SOCIAL CHANGE Roman war and the conquest brought power and wealth to Rome, but they did even more They changed what was a small farming community, more town than city, into one of the largest and most cosmopolitan cities of the ancient world Rome became a place where people from all over the Mediterranean lived, worked, and traded Roman society itself was, if not softened, altered by exposure to other peoples, most notably the Greeks, whose literature, art, and philosophy were embraced by many Romans War also brought to Rome millions of slaves, whose cheap labor led to economic dislocation for many Roman citizens By the first century b.c.e the small farms of early Rome had mostly given way to large farming estates owned by wealthy individuals and worked by slaves The small Roman farmers were left landless and without a livelihood Occasionally, one of these estates was broken up and its land distributed to soldiers, such as those who served Pompey and Julius Caesar However, such redistributions were not given to Roman peasants, many of whom made their way to Rome, where they lived in tenements and depended on food from the state grain supply There was little but poverty for these Roman citizens, for as in the countryside, most work in the city was done by slaves POLITICAL CHANGE War and conquest also led to political change The political organization of the republic, designed to rule a single city, was not capable of handling the administration of such a large realm The Roman Republic lacked any true central authority and had virtually no state employees with which to handle the day-to-day details of government Its ruling officials, two consuls, served for only one year, a period that was often insufficient to study and then handle problems in Rome’s far-flung provinces Additionally, the consuls could overrule each other and be overruled by other elected officials, so important matters frequently were left unattended for years at a time Although they had fewer checks on their power, Rome’s provincial governors, the proconsuls and propraetors, also rarely had more than a yearlong appointment, sometimes a goodly amount of that time being eaten up preparing for the job and then traveling to the assigned region The strain of governance was one of the contributing factors leading to the eventual disintegration of the Roman Republic and the emergence of the Roman Empire, with its single source of authority, the emperor, and its elaborate bureaucracy This political change was also aided by the rise at the end of the second century b.c.e of generals whose troops were more loyal to them than to the state These generals, among them Marius (ca 157–86 b.c.e.), Sulla (138–78 b.c.e.), Pompey (106–48 b.c.e.), and Julius Caesar (100–44 b.c.e.), became rich from the plunder of successful campaigns and used this money to buy the favor of many Roman citizens Caesar, for instance, for one year paid the rent of everyone living in