Carthaginian peace

The Carthaginian Peace describes a peace that permanently destroys the vanquished or deprives him of the opportunity to "get back on his feet". The Treaty of Versailles (1919) is occasionally referred to as the Treaty of Versailles (1919) as the Carthaginian Peace.

Concept emergence

Carthage was a long-established sea and trading power that controlled the western Mediterranean . The Roman Empire was younger - a much-mentioned year of its foundation is 753 BC - and gradually became master of today's Italy .

Until about the middle of the 3rd century BC. The relationship between Rome and Carthage was cooperative, as evidenced by several treaties. But when Rome saw an opportunity to achieve a bridgehead in Sicily , Carthage opposed it because it saw its own possessions in western Sicily endangered by this expansion .

This conflict between Carthaginians - called Poeni ( Punians ) by the Romans - and Romans expanded into a struggle for hegemony in the West in the First (264 - 241 BC) and Second Punic Wars (218 - 201 BC) Mediterranean from.

The former was mainly conducted with naval forces and in Sicily; the second became known through Hannibal's crossing of the Alps ( war elephants were brought along). The Romans suffered their worst defeat at the Battle of Cannae in 216.

Although Rome was on the verge of defeat several times, it won both wars; Carthage, on the other hand, emerged from them noticeably weakened. After the final triumph at the Battle of Zama in 202 BC. Carthage lay on the ground and saw itself reduced to the status of a Roman vassal state . Above all, the Roman conservatives under Marcus Porcius Cato the Elder feared - actually or allegedly - that the hereditary enemy would regain strength and gave Carthage's North African rivals massive advantages.

In the Third Punic War (149 and 146 BC) the Romans eliminated the Carthaginian city-state , destroyed the city itself and established the new province of Africa .

literature

L. Loreto, L'inesistente pace cartaginese, in M. Cagnetta ed., La pace dei vinti, Roma 1997, 79 ff.

Web links

• Martina Trapp: Representation of Carthaginian history in German historical studies and in school books from the middle of the 19th century to the end of National Socialism. Studies on the history of reception (dissertation Univ. Regensburg, 2003) on DissOnline catalog of the German National Library

See also

• History of seafaring
• History of Carthage

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Eberhard Kolb : The Weimar Republic , p. 36. Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, Munich, 2002. [1]