A Short History of the World Read Online Free PDF

Rome. The Republic proceeded to grow rapidly, wisely incorporating the people it conquered as ‘citizens’ as opposed to ‘subjects’, a strategy which effectively reduced chances of rebellion.
    Rome was not without competition, however; the dominant power in the Mediterranean at the time was a Phoenician trading colony founded in the 9th century BC on the north coast of Africa in modern-day Tunisia: Carthage. Carthage had become independent after the Persians had conquered the Phoenicians in the 6th century BC. By the 3rd century BC, the Carthaginian Empire had grown to become the greatest naval power in the Mediterranean, stretching from northern Africa and Sicily to the southern Iberian peninsula in present-day Spain.
    Looking to expand its power base beyond the Italian mainland, Rome interfered in the Carthaginian sphere of influence. Over the course of 118 years, from 264 to 146 BC, the Roman and Carthaginian empires waged a titanic struggle against each other for control of the western Mediterranean on both land and sea. Named the Punic Wars from the word Peoni, the Latin word for Phoenicians, they drained both sides of money and manpower. While there were three major Punic Wars in total, the most famous of these was undoubtedly the second, as it involved a full-scale invasion of Roman territory, an invasion in which the Romans suffered a number of severe losses and from which they only just managed to snatch victory.

    Hannibal and the Punic Wars (264–146 BC)
    In 221 BC, the leadership of the Carthaginian forces in Iberia passed to a 25-year-old named Hannibal, who had succeeded his father. In the autumn of 218 BC he invaded Italy from the north, crossing the Alps in winter with a number of elephants and tens of thousands of men. Arriving in Italy, he repeatedly smashed the Roman armies he came across, conquering most of the north within two months and causing several of the Republic’s cities to rebel.

    The Romans eventually retaliated by attacking Iberia and making much of the area submit to their rule before crossing into Africa and taking the war back to Carthage itself. The city sued for peace and Hannibal was driven into exile where he eventually killed himself. Carthage was turned into a dependent state, only to be razed to the ground by the Romans 50 years later following an attempt to reassert itself.  
    Rome now controlled the whole of the western Mediterranean, including northern Africa, and had grown from a minor regional power into an international empire. Its dominance was secure to such an extent that the Mediterranean became known to the Romans as ‘Mare Nostrum’ or ‘Our Sea’. Another result of the Punic Wars was the occupation of the kingdom of Macedon by the Romans in 168 BC as punishment for the support that the Macedonian king, Philip V, had given the Carthaginians. After this, the mighty Greeks of history became mere citizens of a Roman province.  

    Julius Caesar (100–44 BC)
    Fast-forward a century to 80 BC, and Julius Caesar’s exceptional oratory skills had come to the attention of many. Politically adept, Caesar formed an alliance known as ‘the First Triumvirate’, with Gnaeus Pompey, who was Rome’s greatest general at the time, and Marcus Crassus, Rome’s richest man. With little opposition they were able to split the empire into three separate power bases; Crassus receiving Syria, Pompey receiving Hispania (the Iberian Peninsula) and Caesar receiving northern Italy and south-east Europe, with southern Gaul later added.  
    Caesar grew famous through his successful campaigns in Gaul (roughly equal to modern-day France) between 58 BC and 50 BC, which brought the local population under Roman control through a campaign that was brutal even by Roman standards. The Gauls united under Vercingetorix – recognised today as the first national hero of France – with the aim of ejecting the Romans, but failed. By the time the war ended, according to the Greek historian