Talk:Punic Wars

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Isn't the last paragraph personal conclusion and/or original research? The best that can be said is "Some historians believe ... blah blah blah", and provide citations to where they say it. - Vedexent 21:37, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. As soon as I saw it I came to the talk to see how such an edit survived. If someone wants to rewrite and source it that's fine but I'm removing it for now. --JGGardiner 05:15, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

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I'm going to start working on this article(Laser Pico}29.20.006

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Carthaginian Peace- A link should be put in this article to Carthaginian peace and be discussed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 169.226.40.94 (talk) 21:38, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

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Since the map depicted in the article refers to ancient times can it name SPAIN as HISPANIA (the then name of the region) just as France is referred to as GAUL (in fact it should be GALLIA). This way people will also get information about ancient names of these regions. --Apoorv Khurasia 12.04.07

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Removed Vandalism/Immaturity that changed the Punic wars to the Stupid Wars. Also, I believe the bold of the second paragraph is unnecessary/incorrect and would recommend someone else look at it and change it if I'm right. I usually don't bother with editing wikipedia, but immaturity annoys me. 216.120.184.166 (talk) 13:15, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Atrocious

“ In 149 BC, in an attempt to pacify Carthage, Rome made a series of escalating demands, one being that 300 hundred men of upper class stature had to give away their son as a hostage, ending with the near-impossible demand that the city be demolished and re-built away from the coast, deeper into Africa. The Carthaginians refused this last demand and Rome declared the Third Punic War. Carthage finally realized something, they realized what it meant to truly fight for their country. Before they were a mercantile country that sought wealth above most other things, but now the Carthiginians fought with a zeal found in Rome in Hannibal's time. They made thousands of makeshift weapons in a short amount of time, even using womens' hair for catapult strings. The three hundred Carthiginian council men were being attacked for their cowardice and Carthage finally found their fighting spirit. However, it was too little too late. They embarassed the first Roman army, but the second army, under command of Scipio Ameilianus, made their mark. Scipio Aemilianus besieged the city for three years before he breached the walls, sacked the city, and burned Carthage to the ground. Scipio Aemilianus burned the city so systematically that now it is hard to find any evidence of Carthiginian culture. Scipio Aemilianus was said to be crying intensely, when confronted and asked why he said he feared it would one day happen to Rome. Thus, this war ended another world power and changed our culture as we know it, if Carthage won who would know what would happen to the modern world. The surviving Carthaginians were sold into slavery, and Carthage ceased to exist, until Octavian rebuilt the city as a Roman veterans' colony over a century later. ”

Somebody please rewrite. This attempt at flowery language is both a failure as prose and as history. --Dustek 14:48, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Cleaned it up a little bit. I think the anecdote about Scipio and the proceeding line on Cato aren't that relevant, and better dealt with on their own pages. Also, there's some British/American spelling inconsistencies (esp. 'theater'/'theatre') but I'm not sure which should be changed. Leliro19 01:09, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Please leave the Cato quote in there; Its a famous quote that summarizes Roman anxiety towards Carthage and therefor, I would think, is quite relevant to Carthages ulimate demise at Roman hands. BoudewijnBecking (talk) 08:56, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Repeated image

Do we really need this image published twice in the article? —Cesar Tort 13:05, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Losing siege engines in the Alps?

Do any primary sources indicate that Hannibal lost siege engines in the Alps? Nothing that I have read ever indicated that his army contained a siege train, and it seems far-fetched and impractical that Hannibal would have his men drag bulky, cumbersome siege engines all the way from southeastern Spain over the Alps into Italy. Besides, Hannibal's plan was not to annihilate the city of Rome itself, but rather to separate Rome from its allies by exposing Roman weakness in battle. If he needed siege engines, why wouldn't Hannibal simply have them built in Italy by his anti-Roman allies? Siege engines crossing the Alps? I have never heard of this, although maybe someone could correct me. Elephants yes, but I have never heard of siege engines in Hannibal's march. Lazenby certainly doesn't mention any siege engines... did Livy or Polybius mention them?

Punic Wars = Roman vs. Greeks??!!

I don't know what kind of reference is that but it is obvious that is 100% wrong beause Punic Wars were a war between Carthage and Rome. Carthagenian originated from Phoenicians with a mixture of Brbers and had their distinct language and culture. How Greeks had to do with Punic Wars?! May be there were Greek mercenaries in both parties, but to claim that Punic Wars were between Roman and Greeks it's ridiculous at minimum. I am going to change that part. Aigest (talk) 11:20, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Hannibals Elephants

The text stated that Hannibal used African elephants which commenly refers to the African Bush elephant. It is today agreed that he most definitely not used African Bush elephants. I've added the following text:

"It is still debated if Hannibal used African Forest Elephants, Asian Elephants or even both species as historical traditions indicate both possibilities. The use of African Bush Elephants commenly known as African elephants is ruled out though.)"

Since I'm not really familiar with editing in Wiki and I usually don't edit pages I really don't know if the formating is ok, so someone might want to check it out.--84.74.103.125 (talk) 23:20, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

BC or BCE

A recent edit on the article page changed all references to dates "BCE" to "BC". I do not know what the preference is for this type of historical article. I will check Wikipedia's policies on this and return, possibly to revert the format edit.The Bearded One (talk) 18:34, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Basically, you need a good reason to change the format. As this article used BC from the start, unless there is consensus here that there is a good reason to change, I'm afraid our guidelines say leave it. I just checked the history because if it had started as BCE I would have changed it all back to BCE. See WP:ERA I'd prefer it to be BCE, but it wasn't started that way. Dougweller (talk) 18:58, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

I just checked the many Wikipedia guidelines, and found the lack of concensus/stalemate over the era issue. I appreciate your quick response; if no one had commented, I think I would have been bold and changed all the references to "BCE". If the concensus changes (and I hope it does), I'll help with the changes. The Bearded One (talk) 19:21, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

"strategus"

The Latin form of the Greek word for general seems absurdly inappropriate when referring to a Phoenician commander, what with Phoenician being a Semitic language unrelated to Greek or Latin. This is pseudo-intellectual exhibitionism, and goes far to descrediting any claim to sophistication the article might otherwise aspire to. Just because a classical historian refers to a Phoenician general as a "stretegos" does not mean any Phoenician had such a title in his own language. --AGF