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Over populayed led to magna graecia5/5/2023 ![]() ![]() During the 6th century BC, mostly under the leadership of the Magonid dynasty, Carthage established an empire which would commercially dominate the western Mediterranean until the 2nd century BC. Phoenicians initially (750–650 BC) did not choose to compete with the Greek colonists, but after the Greeks had reached Iberia sometime after 638 BC, Carthage emerged as the leader of Phoenician imperialism. Carthaginian hegemony Ĭarthage created its hegemony in part to resist Greek encroachments in the established Phoenician sphere of influence. These Phoenician cities remained independent until becoming part of the Carthaginian hegemony some time after 540 BC. They had traded with the Elymians, Sicani and Sicels and had ultimately withdrawn without resistance to Motya, Panormus and Soluntum in the western part of the island when the Greek colonists arrived after 750 BC. The Phoenicians had established trading posts all over the coast of Sicily after 900 BC, but had never penetrated far inland. As a result, most of what we know about the Sicilian Wars comes from Greek historians. ![]() None remain on the topic of Carthaginian history. No Carthaginian records of the war exist today because when the city was destroyed in 146 BC by the Romans, the books from Carthage's library were distributed among the nearby African tribes. Small battles had been fought between these settlements for centuries. From their earliest days, both the Greeks and Phoenicians had been attracted to the large island, establishing a large number of colonies and trading posts along its coasts. These two rivals fought their wars on the island of Sicily, which lay close to Carthage. The Greeks, like the Phoenicians, were expert sailors who had established thriving colonies throughout the Mediterranean. This, coupled with its success and growing hegemony, brought Carthage into increasing conflict with the Greeks, the other major power contending for control of the central Mediterranean. They had inherited their naval strength and experience from their forebears, the Phoenicians, but had increased it because, unlike the Phoenicians, the Punics did not want to rely on a foreign nation's aid. The Sicilian Wars, or Greco-Punic Wars, were a series of conflicts fought between ancient Carthage and the Greek city-states led by Syracuse, Sicily over control of Sicily and the western Mediterranean between 580 and 265 BC.Ĭarthage's economic success and its dependence on seaborne trade led to the creation of a powerful navy to discourage both pirates and rival nations. First Peloponnesian War ( Second Sacred War). ![]()
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