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Sources: Operations in Sicily

The document summarizes the sources for the First Punic War between Rome and Carthage in the 3rd century BC. The main source is the historian Polybius, who wrote about a century after the war. He based his account on several now lost Greek and Latin sources. Polybius personally interviewed participants and is considered a generally objective historian. His account of the Battle of Ecnomus is especially detailed. Other later histories exist but are fragmentary. Modern historians also consider accounts by Diodorus Siculus and Dio Cassius, though Polybius is usually preferred when sources differ. Archaeological and other evidence is also used to understand the war.

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19 views2 pages

Sources: Operations in Sicily

The document summarizes the sources for the First Punic War between Rome and Carthage in the 3rd century BC. The main source is the historian Polybius, who wrote about a century after the war. He based his account on several now lost Greek and Latin sources. Polybius personally interviewed participants and is considered a generally objective historian. His account of the Battle of Ecnomus is especially detailed. Other later histories exist but are fragmentary. Modern historians also consider accounts by Diodorus Siculus and Dio Cassius, though Polybius is usually preferred when sources differ. Archaeological and other evidence is also used to understand the war.

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ghasemikasra39
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Sources[edit]

The main source for almost every aspect of the First Punic War[note 2] is the
historian Polybius (c. 200 – c. 118 BC), a Greek sent to Rome in 167 BC as a hostage. His works
include a now lost manual on military tactics,[3] but he is best known for The Histories, written
sometime after 167 BC, or about a century after the Battle of Ecnomus. [4][5] Polybius's work is
considered broadly objective and largely neutral as between Carthaginian and Roman points of
view.[6][7]
Most Carthaginian written records were destroyed along with their capital, Carthage, in 146 BC and
so Polybius's account of the First Punic War is based on several, now lost, Greek and Latin
sources.[8] Polybius was an analytical historian and wherever possible personally interviewed
participants in the events he wrote about.[9][10] Only the first book of the 40 comprising The
Histories deals with this war,[11] but the modern historian G. K. Tipps considers that The
Histories contains "an extensive and meticulously detailed account of the Battle of
Ecnomus".[5] The accuracy of Polybius's account has been much debated over the past 150
years, but the modern consensus is to accept it largely at face value, and the details of the battle
in modern sources are almost entirely based on interpretations of Polybius's
account.[11][12][13] Other, later, histories of the war exist, but in fragmentary or summary form, [14] and
they usually cover military operations on land in more detail than those at sea. [15] Modern
historians usually also take into account the later histories of Diodorus Siculus and Dio Cassius,
although the classicist Adrian Goldsworthy states that "Polybius's account is usually to be
preferred when it differs with any of our other accounts". [note 3][10] Other sources include inscriptions,
archaeological evidence and empirical evidence from reconstructions such as
the trireme Olympias.[17]

Background[edit]
Operations in Sicily[edit]

Territory controlled by Rome and Carthage at the start of the First Punic War
In 264 BC, the states of Carthage and Rome went to war, starting the First Punic War.[18] Carthage
was a well-established maritime power in the Western Mediterranean; Rome had recently unified
mainland Italy south of the Po under its control. The immediate cause of the war was control of the
Sicilian town of Messana (modern Messina). More broadly both sides wished to control Syracuse,
the most powerful city-state on Sicily.[19] By 256 BC, the war had grown into a struggle in which
the Romans were attempting to defeat decisively the Carthaginians and, at a minimum, control
the whole of Sicily.[20]
The Carthaginians were engaging in their traditional policy of waiting for their opponents to wear
themselves out, in the expectation of then regaining some or all of their possessions and
negotiating a mutually satisfactory peace treaty.[21] The Romans were essentially a land-based
power and had gained control of most of Sicily. The war there had reached a stalemate, as the
Carthaginians focused on defending their well-fortified towns and cities; these were mostly on the
coast and so could be supplied and reinforced without the Romans being able to use their
superior army to interfere.[22][23] The focus of the war shifted to the sea, where the Romans had
little experience; on the few occasions they had previously felt the need for a naval presence they
had relied on small squadrons provided by their allies.[24][25]

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