Third Punic war (149–146 BC)

A fight over Messina in 264 BC brought on the first of three Punic Wars between the two largest powers in the Mediterranean – Rome and Carthage.

The cause of the Third Punic War can be attributed to the loss of Scipio Africanus’ moderating influence when he fell victim to political in-fighting and his replacement by Cato with his advocacy of vigorous confrontation with Carthage.

The third Punic War was a security measure meant to protect Rome from future confrontations with a resurgent Carthage.

Cato the sensor, flush with triumph from Greek and Asia Minor campaigns, argued before the Roman Senate that Carthage was a deadly enemy close to home and convinced it to demand that Carthage give up its port and move inland.

When Carthage refused this deliberately outrages demand, the Romans invaded, seized the city and systematically slaughtered the inhabitants. In a war in which Rome showed neither mercy nor pity and in which Carthage was besieged for two years, the cruel order was finally given in 146 BC that Carthage must be utterly destroyed.

The Third Punic War, terminated by the destruction of Carthage, continued but four years and some months.

After leveling the city, the whole site was ploughed, salt was sprinkled on the earth, and a solemn curse was pronounced upon whomever would attempt to rebuild the city.
Third Punic war (149–146 BC)

Byblos

Ancient Byblos ruin, temple of the Obelisks

The site of ancient Byblos lies on the Lebanese coast about 25 miles north of Beirut. It has been continuously occupied since the late Neolithic Period (c. 5000 b.c.e.), and its tradition claims that it is the oldest city in the world.

The Greeks gave the name Byblos to the site because they imported Egyptian papyrus, or byblos, through the city. The Egyptians called it Kebeny, but the name of the city was Gubal to its inhabitants, and later Gebal. Byblos persists as the name of the archaeological site, but the town’s name in Arabic is Jebeil.

For centuries the location of the ancient city was forgotten until discovered by the French scholar Ernest Renan in 1860. It lay under the town of Jebeil, the walls of its houses containing inscribed stones from the city’s ancient past.


Between 1919 and 1924 Pierre Montet’s excavations revealed the tombs of nine ancient rulers of Byblos. Maurice Dunand succeeded Montet, conducting excavations from 1925 to 1975.

The fourth-century c.e. geographer Strabo described Byblos as a “city on a height only a short distance from the sea.” It had an excellent geographical situation where trade routes from north and south met.

The city was built on a promontory, behind which the mountains of Lebanon came closest to the sea, providing easy access to vast forests of cedar wood and reserves of copper ore. On either side of the promontory were bays that provided natural harbors, the larger one to the south.

On the north side lay the upper town, or acropolis, holding the palaces and temples. The harbors were not particularly large but quite capable of handling the goods that flowed in and out of Byblos. Exports included Canaanite wine and oil and the all-important timber.

Another Bylos ruin in port

The earliest example of the Phoenician alphabet (c. 1000 b.c.e.) is found on the sarcophagus of King Ahiram of Byblos. Remains from nearly 3,000 years of contact with Egypt survive, including artifacts inscribed with names of pharaohs from all periods.

Trade was disrupted around 2300 b.c.e. by Amorite tribes from the desert invading the coastal plain and attacking Byblos. The city soon recovered and entered on a period of great prosperity that lasted until the coming of the Sea Peoples in the 13th century b.c.e.

The Iron Age (1200–586 b.c.e.) ushered in the Phoenician age of Byblos: the blend of the coastal Canaanites and the Sea Peoples. After 1000 b.c.e. the city was never completely independent of the great powers, Assyria, Babylon, and Persia.


Byblos always put trade first and submitted to its overlords, including Alexander the Great, to whom it surrendered and was spared. After Alexander’s conquest the city slowly adopted Greek culture and language.

The arrival of the Romans in 64 b.c.e. brought three centuries of peace and prosperity to the city, along with the building of temples, theaters, and baths. Byzantine imperial rule brought a Christian bishop to the city, but there are few remains from this period. In 636 c.e. the city passed under Arab rule until taken by the crusaders in 1104.

Around 1215 the crusaders built the Church of St. John the Baptist. In 1289 the city surrendered to the Mamelukes, and in the 15th century Byblos was taken over by the Ottoman Turks, under whose rule Jebeil operated as an obscure fishing port.

Carthage

Carthage harbor

The city of Carthage in North Africa (modern-day Tunisia) was the capital of the Carthaginian empire that controlled parts of the Mediterranean from the seventh century b.c.e. until it was destroyed in 146 b.c.e.

Tradition has the city founded by Queen Dido, from Tyre, a Phoenician city in modern-day Lebanon. According to that legend, after Troy was sacked by the Greeks, Prince Aeneas fled by sea and was shipwrecked there.

Queen Dido fell in love with him, but his destiny was to found Rome. Roman historians give different dates for the founding of Carthage. Timaeus gives c. 814 b.c.e., but Apion states 751 b.c.e. The earliest known tombs date from 725–700 b.c.e.


Carthage was founded for trade, which created great wealth and helped it to dominate parts of North Africa and the central and eastern Mediterranean. Metals from North Africa were traded for wine, cloth, and pottery. By the sixth century b.c.e. it was ruled by an aristocratic oligarchy through a senate.

Carthaginian trade in Sicily and Italy led to clashes with the Greeks and the Etruscans. Carthage occupied the island of Ibiza off the Mediterranean coast of Iberia in 591 b.c.e, and in the 540s b.c.e. it conquered Sardinia.

The city lay on a peninsula in the gulf of Tunis. The Greek historian Appian recorded that it had three rows of walls each 45 feet tall and 30 feet wide, with barracks for 24,000 men and stables for 4,000 horses and 300 elephants.

Carthage had two great harbors between the peninsula and the mainland. Large iron chains could be raised at the mouth of the harbor as protection from attacks. Vessels came from all parts of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic coasts of Africa, Spain, France and Britain.

They had trade in Tyrian royal purple dye, Tyrian royal blue dye, and dyed fabrics, tin for bronze, silver, gold, lumber, wine, cloth, pottery, carpets, jewelry, lamps, and other goods. Beyond this harbor was the military harbor. The entrance was narrow with a tall watchtower overlooking the harbors and sea. The Greek writer Appian reported that 220 ships could be accommodated.

The First Punic War broke out with Rome over disputes in Sicily regarding control of the city of Messana (modern, Messina, Sicily) in 265 b.c.e. The Romans sent a force to Africa.

At the Battle of Tunes (Tunis) in 255 b.c.e., near the city of Carthage, the Carthaginians, with Greek mercenaries, destroyed the Roman army. The defeat of Rome left Carthage safe. Carthage was forced to leave Sicily after its navy was defeated in 241 b.c.e.

Romans captured the island of Sardinia in 238 b.c.e. Carthage then focused on Iberian Peninsula territory. There the Carthaginians built the city of New Carthage (present-day Cartagena). From there Commander Hamilcar Barca and his son Hannibal launched an attack on Rome in the Second Punic War in 219 b.c.e.

Roman commander Scipio landed in North Africa in 204 b.c.e. Hannibal’s army of 18,000 men left Italy for Carthage and raised a large army. He met the Romans and Numidians near Carthage at Zama in 202 b.c.e. Hannibal was defeated.

The Romans forced the city to hand over all its warships and elephants and pay a massive indemnity to Rome. In 146 b.c.e. Roman forces leveled Carthage and then plowed the fields with salt so that no one could grow food there and rebuild. Later, Rome built Colonia Julia Carthago, the capital of Roman Africa.

Hagia Sophia

Ancient Byzantine church, Hagia Sophia

The cathedral church of Constantinople, built on the ruins of an earlier church, dates back to the fourth century c.e. hagia sophia in Greek means "holy wisdom", referring to the holy wisdom of God, a theological concept much discussed in religious traditions.

The original church was destroyed by fire in 532 during a massive riot against the government of Emperor Justinian I (527–565 c.e.). Justinian restored order and commanded the construction of Christendom’s then greatest church.

The plan was designed by architects Anthemios of Tralles and Isidore of Miletos and took, according to one source, two teams of 5,000 workers five years to complete. The magnificence of the church was apparent upon its consecration in 537, when Justinian reportedly declared, "O Solomon [the legendary builder of the Temple in Jerusalem], I have outdone thee!"


The church is approximately 250 feet long, 230 feet wide, and sits beneath a dome 100 feet in diameter that reaches nearly 185 feet from the ground. The dome rests on four arches (themselves supported by four massive piers).

Beneath the dome are openings that let light in, creating an appearance that the dome rests on air, held up by heaven itself. The dome’s design was extremely bold and suffered as a result, collapsing in 558. The dome was repaired but was susceptible to damage by earthquakes in subsequent centuries.

Hagia Sophia radiated Orthodox Byzantine power and wealth. Its interior mesmerized onlookers with the sparkle of a ceiling covered in gold, a sanctuary adorned by 40,000 pounds of silver, glowing mosaics, and decorative marble, all of which proclaimed the glory of Byzantium.

Ottoman mosque, Aya Sofya (1852)

For building this church, the memory of Emperor Justinian in the Byzantine mind was outdone only by that of Constantine the Great, who built Constantinople. A mosaic in the Hagia Sophia’s narthex depicts each emperor offering his monument to the Virgin Mary holding the Christ Child. Constantinople and Hagia Sophia came to epitomize Byzantium for the next millennium of Byzantine history.

As the church of the Orthodox Patriarch, Hagia Sophia served as the liturgical center of Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire. It also played a central role in the empire’s political life as the location where the patriarch crowned each new emperor.

It also played an essential part in imperial processions and the expression of Byzantine power to foreign ambassadors. The sight of the Hagia Sophia impressed visitors from Western Christendom, the Slavic lands, the Muslim world, and the various tribes of the north.


When, in the 10th century, for example, Russian visitors sent by Vladimir of Kiev visited Constantinople, the emperor sent them to behold the worship in the cathedral (expecting them to be impressed).

In fact, they were so mesmerized by the experience, they declared that were uncertain whether they were in heaven or on earth. Vladimir and the Russians soon converted to Orthodox Christianity.

The cathedral remained the great monument of Orthodox Byzantium until 1453, when the Ottoman Turks conquered Constantinople under Sultan Mehmet II. The sultan converted it into a mosque, adding minarets. When the Ottoman Empire ended in the early 20th century, Turkish ruler Kemal Atatürk converted the building into a museum.

Inside (*just*) secular museum, Hagia Sophia

Hannibal - Carthaginian General

Between the years 264 and 146 b.c.e., the Romans and Carthaginians fought three wars known as the Punic Wars that eventually led to the destruction of Carthage. The First Punic War lasted from 264 until 241 b.c.e. and resulted in Carthage losing control of Sicily to the Romans.

Hannibal Barca led the Carthaginian invasion of Italy during the Second Punic War, which ran from 219 to 202 b.c.e. At the Battle of Zama, in 202 b.c.e., Scipio (who gained the title Africanus because of his victory) defeated Hannibal.

The Carthaginians sued for peace, which lasted until the Third Punic War from 149 to 146 b.c.e. The third war ended with the complete destruction of the city of Carthage and the enslavement of the population.


The First Punic War was fought for control of Sicily. At the start of the war the Carthaginians controlled most of Sicily. Carthage was interested in trade with other civilizations, and its power base was its fleet.

Rome, on the other hand, did not have a fleet but had a very powerful army. Because of the difference in power bases, the two powers had coexisted easily with each other up until the time of the First Punic War.

What brought about the war was a request by a group of men called the Mamertines, who had taken control of the town of Messana. They had been defeated by the Syracusans and then occupied by the Carthaginians, who did not want the Syracusans to occupy Messana.

The Mamertines then requested Roman aid to get rid of the Carthaginians. The Romans decided to come to the aid of the Mamertines and in 264 b.c.e. moved troops to Sicily, which were able to gain control of Messana when the Carthaginian garrison withdrew from the town.

The Romans negotiated with the Syracusans and other towns in Sicily and convinced them to join the Romans in the war. Because of their fleet, the Carthaginians were able to keep control of many of the coastal cities.

To finish the conquest of Sicily the Romans needed to build a fleet, and in 260 b.c.e. the Roman fleet took to the seas and began its campaign to drive the Carthaginians from the seas around Sicily. The Romans won several naval battles during the period from 260 to 256 b.c.e.

The Romans had decided to try a different strategy to invade Africa in an attempt to defeat the Carthaginians on their home territory and end the war. The Romans sailed from Messana toward Africa but were intercepted by the Carthaginian fleet.

The Carthaginians were eventually overcome by Roman tactics and lost more than a third of their fleet, at which point they fled from the battle. The battle delayed the Roman invasion of Africa but only temporarily.

The invasion fleet reached Africa later that year and left the army to lay siege to Carthage. Calling for support to defend the city, Carthage received mercenaries from the Greeks, including a Spartan general who in 256 b.c.e. led the Carthaginian army in an attack on the Roman army. The Roman army was routed, and the siege, lifted.

The remains of the Roman army were evacuated later that year back to Rome. The focus of the war then returned to Sicily. From 254 until 243 b.c.e. the Romans and Carthaginians fought in Sicily with neither side being able to gain the upper hand in the fighting.

Then in 243 b.c.e. the Romans, with a new fleet, were able to again defeat the Carthaginians at sea and stop the flow of supplies to Sicily. With the loss of supplies and support the Carthaginian commander, Hamilcar Barca (Hannibal’s father), was forced to work out terms with the Romans.

Hannibal was born in 247 b.c.e. Hamilcar had been the commander of the Carthaginian troops in Sicily at the end of the war and spent the rest of his life trying to gain revenge on the Romans for the defeat.

In 237 b.c.e. at a religious festival, Hamilcar had his son Hannibal take an oath to remember that the Romans were their sworn enemies. That same year Hannibal accompanied his father to Spain, where he stayed until his return to Carthage in 228 b.c.e., after his father’s death, to finish his schooling.

Carthagian war elephants destroy roman army

He returned to Spain in 224 b.c.e. to command the cavalry forces for his brother-in-law until his brother-in-law died in 220 b.c.e. The army then voted Hannibal its new leader. Hannibal would prove to be an excellent strategist and tactician.

Hannibal’s conquest of Spain eventually brought him into confl ict with the Romans when he captured the town of Saguntum. In 218 b.c.e. Hannibal and his army left Spain and headed for Italy, where he would campaign for the next 15 years.

Hannibal took his army, including war elephants, across the Alps and into Italy. His army was not large enough to capture and occupy the cities in Italy, so Hannibal tried to break up the Roman confederation, which would reduce Rome’s power and allow Carthage to win the war.


In 218 b.c.e. Hannibal defeated a Roman army near the Trebia River where it flowed into the Po River. With this victory most of Cisalpine Gaul sided with Hannibal. The following spring he moved south, and Hannibal was able to lure the Roman army into a trap, where his army killed 15,000 of the 21,000 Roman soldiers.

Hannibal continued to pillage and burn the Italian countryside but could not take the city of Rome, nor would the Romans give up. A victory at Cannae was Hannibal’s high point. He continued to campaign in Italy over the next 11 years, but the Romans slowly gained the upper hand against the Carthaginians.

The Carthaginians tried to expand the war, and an army was sent to Sardinia but due to bad weather was delayed and arrived after the Romans, who defeated them. Hannibal was also able to convince Philip of Macedon to attack the Romans in Illyria. The Romans gathered a number of allies in Greece, which allowed them to hold Philip in check.

During 216 to 205 b.c.e. Hannibal found himself more and more tied to protecting the cities of the Roman provinces that had sided with him. In 204 b.c.e. the Romans took the war to Africa by sending an army under the command of Scipio Africanus, attempting to end the war.

With the Roman invasion of Africa, Hannibal was recalled from Italy to command the army that was protecting Carthage. The years of war had finally worn down the Carthaginian army, and it was routed from the battlefield by the Romans.

Having lost the battle, the Carthaginians were in no shape to continue the war and made peace with the Romans. Hannibal helped to rebuild Carthage after the war, which irritated the Romans, who forced him into exile in 196 b.c.e. The Romans continued to pursue Hannibal, and in 183 b.c.e., he committed suicide.

The final war, the Third Punic War, was fought from 149 to 146 b.c.e. The Romans insisted that the Carthaginians abandon their city, which they refused to do. When the siege was completed and the city was captured in 146 b.c.e., 90 percent of the population was dead. The remainder were sold into slavery, and the city of Carthage was destroyed.

Hurrians

The Hurrians were a non-Semitic, Indo-European people who originated in Caucasia, or beyond, northeast of Mesopotamia.

In the late third millennium b.c.e. they migrated from east of the Tigris River across northern Mesopotamia, eventually making their way to the Mediterranean coast in the late second millennium b.c.e. During the time of Naram-Sin, the Hurrians controlled minor states in the vicinity of Akkad.

Talpuš-atili of Nagar has the distinction of being the oldest known Hurrian ruler; he is attested on an Akkadian seal found at Tell Brak from the end of the third millennium b.c.e. Repeated campaigns were conducted against the Hurrians during the Ur III period, which brought large numbers of Hurrians to Sumer from lands north, northeast, and east of the Tigris.


The religion of the Hurrians centered on the worship of the storm god Teššub. His sister and/or consort was Šawuška, the goddess of love and war. She was worshipped under numerous guises, most famously as Ishtar of Nineveh.

Other gods of note were Kumarbi, the Hurrian grain god, and Hepat, a Syrian goddess who eventually replaced Šawuška as Teššub’s consort in western Hurrian traditions. Based on records from such sites as Mari, Ugarit, and Alalakh, the Hurrians are generally divided into two cultural and historical spheres.

The older eastern sphere formed the Hurrian heartland and stretched from the region of Lake Van and Lake Urmia in the north to Kirkuk in the south. A second western sphere emerged later in southeastern Anatolia and north Syria.

These two cultural spheres were briefly united under the control of the Mitanni kingdom in the mid-second millennium, with its capital located at Waššukani, which may be modern Tel Fakhariya.

The kingdom of Mittani reached it zenith under Sauštater, whose realm stretched from the Zagros Mountains to the Mediterranean. Thus the Hurrian culture was a bridge of sorts between the cultures of Mesopotamia, the Assyrians and Babylonians, and those further west including Hatti and Aram.

The Hurrians finally filtered into Palestine by the end of the Middle Bronze Age. Na’aman argues that the Middle Bronze Age ended when northerners (the Hurrians) advanced southward through the Beqa and Jordan Valleys.

Conversely, Hess questions whether the northern cultural presence found in the Late Bronze Age can be used to explain the end of the Middle Bronze Age. Regardless, Hurrian influence in the southern Levant is based on the conflicts that Thutmose III had with the kingdom of Mittani.

The Hurrians are known in the Bible as the Horites (Gen 36:2–3); they may also be associated with the Hivites (Exod 23:23; Judges 3:3) and the Jebusites (Exod 23:23; Josh 15:63). While the theory of Hurrian origin for the Hyksos dynasty in Egypt (17th century b.c.e.) has been refuted, it is possible that Hyksos infiltration in Egypt was a result of Hurrian expansion in Palestine.

King’s Highway and Way of The Sea

There were two main highways in ancient times between Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the lower Arabian Peninsula: the King’s Highway and the Way of the Sea. The King’s Highway largely skirted the desert and served desert peoples.

It ran from Damascus to the Gulf of Aqabah, and from there it forked into a route that crossed the Sinai to Egypt and a route that ran the eastern coast of the Red Sea into the Hejaz, or western Arabic coastal region. While the term appears often in historical records, it may have originally meant simply "royal road" or "principal highway", with no connection to a particular king or kingdom.

The King’s Highway has always been an important road for pilgrims, traders, and conquerors. The Bible records it as the route that Moses and the "children of Israel" might well have taken after they fled from ancient Egypt. Most likely it was the path that Abraham used to pursue the desert kings who had taken his nephew Lot as hostage.


Throughout later history the King’s Highway was a crucial resource for kings and generals. On this highway David and Solomon secured trade and leverage over their eastern neighbors, Moab and Edom. When the Aramaeans arose under Ben-Hadad I and Hazael, they expanded southward by controlling this highway.

The people of Assyria took Damascus and the Transjordan by means of it, and centuries later the Nabataeans used the King’s Highway to ship their spices and luxury goods from their hideaway refuge in Petra to the markets of Damascus and beyond.

Around the turn of the millennium Rome entered the area and subjugated Nabatea a century later. The Romans made the King’s Highway a part of their imperial road system, especially using it as a means of transport through the forbidding Arab deserts.

They called it the Via Nova Traiana (Trajan’s New Way) because of Trajan’s sponsorship. Its strategic value did not end when the area was traded off between Byzantines, Arabs, Persians, and Muslims.

Because of the requirement for pilgrimage (hajj), the road became even more important for Bedouins and northern Arab Muslims for travel to Mecca and Medina. Only in the 16th century did the Ottomans develop an alternate route.

The crusaders fortified the highway at the turn of the next millennium, and their castles are still imposing landmarks in the modern Jordanian villages along the way. Today the route is called Tariq es-Sultani (Way of the Sultan).

Ancient road builders left traces along the highway, from the Roman milestones to the crusader castles. Even today villages of the modern state of Jordan mark its path.

The King’s Highway follows the highlands and ridges east of the Jordan and the Dead Sea, and some of the most spectacular desert scenery in the Middle East greets travelers. Freshwater springs flow at various places and so explain the popularity of the King’s Highway.

The Way of the Sea was the principal coastal highway and the one most chosen by traffickers between Mesopotamia and Egypt. The reasons are simple: It was close to water, food sources, and towns and avoided the highlands.

Damascus was the northern junction, and the path went from there to the Sea of Galilee, then through Jezreel Valley and Megiddo, reaching the Mediterranean coast and following it until Zoan in northern Egypt.

Various parties controlled the Way of the Sea. At first it fell under the infl uence of the Egyptians (and was called the Way of Horus in ancient sources), then under the Philistines (called the Way of the Land of the Philistines in the Bible), and finally under the Romans (who called it Via Maris, Way of the Sea).

There were three main sites of strategic importance along the Way of the Sea: Gezer along the southern section of the road in the area contested by the Egyptians and the Philistines; Megiddo in the central section guarding the fertile Jezreel Valley, and Hazor in the north, where the road forked toward the city-states of the Phoenicians in the northwest or toward Damascus in the northeast.