5/6

Today in Western Civilization we took notes. Here are the notes that I took.

Roman Legion

-5,000 soldiers, not in it for pay (not yet)

            -The Roman army’s elite heavy infantry

            -Recruited exclusively from Roman citizens

            -Group of eighty – century

            -On horseback – cavalry

            -Shield, sword, dagger and tunic

Punic Wars in Carthage

-The Punic Wars (264 – 146 BCE)

-Rome vs. Carthage

-Three wars

Two Empires fighting for control

First Punic War – (264 – 241 BCE)

-Naval battle for control of the strategically located of Sicily

-Rome wins this one

The (Carthaginian) Empire Strikes Back

Second Punic War (218 – 201 BCE)

-29 year old Carthage general Hannibal almost does the impossible taking Rome

-Attacks Rome from the North after crossing Iberia and the Alps

-Lays siege too much of the peninsula for 15 years, but could never get back to Rome

Third and Final Punic War (149 – 146 BCE)

-Rome wanted to finally remove the threat of Carthage

-Scipio, Tiberius Gracchus, and others mercilessly attached the city

-Carthage was burned for 17 days, the city’s walls and buildings were utterly destroyed

-When the war ended, the last 50,000 people in the city was sold into slavery

-The rest of Carthage’s territories were annexed, and made into the Roman province of Africa

Total Destruction; end of an empire

-Marcus Portius Cato the Elder was a politician who ended every speech by saying, “Delenda Carthage est.” which means Carthage must be destroyed

-He got his wish

Economic Change; Social Upheavels

-Slaves poured into Italy (50,000 Carthaginians, 150,000 Greek POWs, etc.)

-By the end of the Second Century BCE there was over a million slaves in Italy

-Small farmers lost their land to aristocrats (for little or no money) if they couldn’t pay their debts, sometimes because the men of the farm were fighting battles

-Slaves did the work on the farms for the rich

-The big farms became massive estates called latifundia