Schwarze Tage

Summer 216 BC – the Carthaginian Hannibal has crossed the Alps in a strategic coup and decimates the Roman troops in a series of battles. The name Cannae, where at least 50,000 legionaries met their death, looms over Rome like a harbinger of doom. Do the Romans face another dies ater, another black day? Yet, when the final battle of the Punic Wars is fought, Carthage lies in ruins, and Rome begins its ascent to a world empire.

"I fear for the future, that perhaps one day another will pronounce the same judgment on our fatherland," the general Scipio is said to have spoken to the historian Polybius in tears in 146, as he gazed upon the burning ruins of Carthage. He himself had given the order to reduce the ancient metropolis, which had significantly shaped the course of history in the Mediterranean for centuries, to rubble and ashes. Carthage is said to have burned for seventeen days. The city was completely destroyed at that time, its site cursed; the surviving inhabitants were sold into slavery. The commander allowed his soldiers to take away as much as they could carry. The era that began with the outbreak of the First Punic War in 264 and concluded with the destruction of Carthage is the most dynamic phase not only in the history of the Roman Republic but of the entire ancient Mediterranean world. In its power structure, literally no stone was left unturned, and the internal structure of Roman society underwent a fundamental transformation.

Michael Sommer offers in this volume not only an exciting and informative overall presentation of the events but also insightfully illuminates the background of this conflict and introduces the protagonists and their motives during the various phases of the conflict. Thus, it becomes clear why Rome and the...