Over 50 years after the second Punic war, Numidia launched attacks on Carthaginian town. Carthage broke the peace terms decided upon during the second Punic War and mobilized an army to fight the Numidians and suffered a defeat and was charged with another fifty year debt to Numidia. Rome responds to this by declaring war on Carthage in 149BC. The Carthaginians attempted to appeal this and were forced to send 300 hundred children of well-born Carthaginians as hostages to Rome. Even after this, the city of Utica defects to Rome and 80,000 Roman soldiers landed at Utica. The siege of Carthage lasted 3 years until the Romans successfully took the city. The end of the three Punic wars had come to an end, with all Carthaginians being sold into slavery and Carthage to burn for 17 days.
After the Battle of Zama, Hannibal convinced the Carthaginians to sue for peace. The conditions of peace allowed for Rome to dominate the Mediterranean uncontested.
After Scipio had conquered Iberia he set his sights on Africa itself. He was given command of the legions stationed in Sicily and was sent to threaten Carthage.
Scipio Africanus was dispatched to Iberia to avenge his father and brothers untimely deaths. Scipio was unlike other Roman generals in this war, in that his brilliance rivaled that of Hannibal.
Since the second biggest city in Italy, Capua had defected to Hannibal, the Romans sought to get this city back. Their first attempt in 212 BC was unsuccessful, but they tried their luck again in 211 with success.
Seeing that the two Carthaginian forces in Iberia had been separated, the two Scipios decide to split up their force and engage both armies at the same time.
After the Battle of Cannae, several Italian cities in the south part of the Italian peninsula defected and allied themselves with Carthage.
After Hannibal captured a major supply depot at Cannae. This forced the Romans to act, as this put the Carthaginians right in between Rome and her crucial supply sources.
Quintus Fabius Maximus is appointed by the Senate as acting dictator with full military control. Fabius decides to combat Hannibal not through the traditional Roman method by defeating him in open combat, but by shadowing Hannibal and engaging in small skirmishes. This became known as the Fabian strategy.
The second Punic war started over Sanguntum, a city that Hannibal laid siege to before he crossed the Alps. Setting base camp at the new city of New Carthage in southern Spain, just west of Sanguntum.
After this failed African expedition, the Romans turn their attention to Sicily once again. They pushed north capturing Thermae, Kephalodon and Panormus. After these three cities plus others were under Roman control, the Romans turned their attention towards Lilybaeum, the Carthaginian headquarters in Sicily.
After a few years of back and forth fighting on the island of Sicily itself, Rome decides to try to end the war in a quicker fashion. They pull together an invasion force and construct a major fleet to transport the army across the sea. Carthage attempts to stop this with a fleet of 350 ships at the Battle of Cape Ecnomus and fails. Marcus Atilius Regulus and his Roman army lands in Africa and starts ravaging the countryside.
Despite having virtually no experience with naval warfare, the Romans decide to build a fleet. They recognized the need to challenge the Carthaginians naval power, doing this with a tool called the corvus. The corvus was a boarding contraption with which the Romans were able to board enemy ships and use their superior land power against them via legionaries.
Carthage, after seeing Rome take both Messana and Syracuse, decide to round up an army to match them. An army of 50,000 infantry, 6,000 cavalry and 60 elephants was dispatched to Sicily with the objective of used fortified cities as bases with which they would tire out the Roman legions and beat them in the open field.
Carthage takes first action and comes to the aid of the Mamertines at Messana after they had asked for either Roman or Carthaginian assistance to help defeat Hiero II of Syracuse.
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