240 – 237 BC
Rome takes Sardinia and Corsica
Late in 240 or early in 239 BC the Carthaginian garrisons on Sardinia join the Mercenary War. They kill their officers and the governor, and a force sent to retake the island mutinies as well and kills every Carthaginian there. The mutineers ask Rome for protection, and Rome refuses. Carthage has held parts of Sardinia for about three hundred years.
The ruins of Tharros, a Phoenician and Punic town on the west coast of SardiniaWikimedia Commons, Mike Peel (www.mikepeel.net), CC BY-SA 4.0 (At Tharros, Sardinia 2024 029.jpg)
Probably in 237 BC the native Sardinians drive the mutineers out, and they flee to Italy. This time Rome accepts their appeal and prepares to occupy Sardinia and Corsica. Carthage protests and fits out its own expedition to retake the island, and the Roman Senate declares that preparation an act of war.
Rock-cut tombs of the Punic necropolis of Tuvixeddu at Cagliari, ancient KaralisWikimedia Commons, Cristiano Cani, CC BY 2.0 (Necropoli di Tuvixeddu.jpg)
Weakened by thirty years of war, Carthage gives up both islands and pays a further 1,200 talents. Polybius calls the seizure unjust and names it the main cause of the next war between the two cities. Rome fights revolts on the islands for years afterwards and governs them as one province.
Sources
- Polybius, Histories, books 1 and 3.
- Richard Miles, Carthage Must Be Destroyed (2010).
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