On This Day in History: February 5

At last, peace between Carthage and Rome

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There were three wars between Carthage and Rome, called the Punic Wars, that took place between 264 and 146 BCE. There were only three because after the third there was nothing left to fight over. I mean, the city of Carthage was gone. The Romans destroyed it. So I guess that ended that. Except, not really. Not for another two millennia.

--On This Day in History Shit Went Down: February 5, 1985--

During the period of the Punic Wars, Rome was the dominant empire of the region, kicking all sorts of ass o’er the Mediterranean. Carthage was a powerful Phoenician city-state residing in present-day Tunisia. They did not like each other, hence: war. Times three. The first one lasted 23 years, the second was 17 years, and the third the Romans were done fucking around and got all their killing done in four short years.

The Romans won the first two wars as well, but not devastatingly so. The second is noteworthy because that was when Hannibal won a bunch of battlefield victories against the Romans using elephants. Not that the elephants made much difference. It just gets mentioned a lot because holy fucking shit he had elephants we should mention that in the history books. Despite Hannibal winning battles, the Carthaginians still lost that war.

By the time of the Third Punic War Carthage wasn’t much of a military threat to Rome, but they decided to fuck its shit up anyway. Why? Probably greed. Carthage was prosperous and posed something of an economic threat, and if Rome conquered it, they could do some looting and enslaving while they were at it. Not to mention that having an enemy to point to distracts the peasantry from the corruption of their own government.

So, Rome invaded, killed about three-quarters of a million people, enslaved the 50,000 survivors, destroyed the city, and turned the region into a Roman province. Nice. But the war didn’t end. Not officially, at least. Because there was no one to make peace with. They were all fucking dead or enslaved.

Realizing that they were still technically at war 2,131 years later, the mayor of modern Carthage and the mayor of Rome signed a symbolic peace treaty between the two cities on February 5, 1985.

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