SUMMARY OF THE PUNIC WARS

The three Punic Wars between Carthage and Rome took place over nearly a century, beginning in 264 B.C. and ending with the destruction of Carthage in 146 B.C. By the time the First Punic War broke out, Rome had become the dominant power throughout the Italian peninsula, while Carthage a powerful city state in northern Africa had established itself as the leading power in the world. The First Punic War broke out in 264 B.C. when Rome interfered in a dispute on the Carthaginian controlled island of Sicily. The war ended with Rome in control of both Sicily and Corsica and marked the empire's emergence as a naval as well as a land power. In the Second Punic War, the great Carthaginian general Hannibal invaded Italy and scored great victories at Lake Trasimene and Cannae before his eventual defeat at the hands of Rome's Scipio Africanus in 202 B.C. that left Rome in control of the western Mediterranean and much of Spain. In the Third Punic War, the Romans, led by Scipio the Younger, captured and destroyed the city of Carthage in 146 B.C., turning Africa into yet another province of the mighty Roman Empire.

Origin of the first Punic War

Carthage had, in the 260s control of much of Sicily. This mattered little to Rome for it had few direct interests there. Thus when a complicated little dispute arose in the city of Messana in 264 and one side appealed to Carthage while the other appealed to Rome no one thought it was any more than a local quarrel.
Messana was a port city controlling the Straits and so when a Carthaginian fleet was invited in by one side Rome felt it had to respond in some way. An expeditionary force caused the Punic (the Roman word for Carthaginian) fleet to withdraw and that could well have been that.
The Punic admiral's retreat was received at home and Carthage responded with a larger force prying