Listen free for 30 days

  • What If Carthage Won the Punic Wars?

  • An Alternative History of the Conflict Between Rome and Carthage
  • Written by: Charles River Editors
  • Narrated by: Daniel Houle
  • Length: 2 hrs and 38 mins
  • 3.0 out of 5 stars (2 ratings)

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo + applicable taxes after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
What If Carthage Won the Punic Wars? cover art

What If Carthage Won the Punic Wars?

Written by: Charles River Editors
Narrated by: Daniel Houle
Try for $0.00

$14.95 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $8.71

Buy Now for $8.71

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Tax where applicable.

Publisher's Summary

Rome and Carthage rarely could maintain peace after the end of the fourth century BCE. As the two most powerful civilizations in the western Mediterranean region, they were destined to clash, curse or not.

Roman historians placed the foundation of Carthage at approximately 814 BCE, several decades before Rome. The settlers of Carthage were of Phoenician descent, tracing their ancestry back to the great city of Tyre on the southern coast of Lebanon, but Carthage soon transformed from a minor Phoenician colony into the capital of its own growing civilization.

The city itself was well positioned for shipping, and it soon dominated maritime trade. Along with that, the Carthaginians built a powerful and well-trained navy, whose protection, combined with its strategic location, made the city of Carthage a formidable prospect to attack. At its height, Carthage housed several hundred thousand inhabitants, living under a republican governmental system operated by the Carthaginian Senate. As Carthage grew, it began to expand, conquering by sea and establishing new colonies to improve trade networks. One of the Carthaginians’ key objectives was Sicily.

Certain foreign policy decisions led to continuing enmity between Carthage and the burgeoning power of Rome, and what followed was a series of wars which turned from a battle for Mediterranean hegemony into an all-out struggle for survival. Although the Romans gained the upper hand in the wake of the First Punic War, Hannibal brought the Romans to their knees for over a decade during the Second Punic War. While military historians are still amazed that he was able to maintain his army in Italy near Rome for nearly 15 years, scholars are still puzzled over some of his decisions, including why he never attempted to march on Rome in the first place.

After the serious threat Hannibal posed during the Second Punic War, the Romans didn’t wait much longer to take the fight to the Carthaginians in the Third Punic War, which ended with Roman legions smashing Carthage to rubble. As legend has it, the Romans literally salted the ground upon which Carthage stood to ensure its destruction, once and for all.

Despite having a major influence on the Mediterranean for nearly five centuries, little evidence of Carthage’s past might survives. The city itself was reduced to nothing by the Romans, who sought to erase all physical evidence of its existence, and though its ruins have been excavated, they have not provided anywhere near the wealth of archaeological items or evidence as ancient locations like Rome, Athens, Syracuse, or even Troy. Today, Carthage is a largely unremarkable suburb of the city of Tunis, and though there are some impressive ancient monuments there for tourists to explore, the large majority of these are the result of later Roman settlement.

The Punic Wars spanned more than a century, brought the loss of approximately 400,000 lives, and eventually led to the utter defeat and destruction of Carthage, but it was no easy victory for Rome, and on several occasions, the young Roman Republic was close to annihilation. Given what happened in the wake of the Punic Wars, historians have long been left to ponder what might have happened had the Carthaginians won, especially given how close Hannibal came to accomplishing such a victory against Rome during the Second Punic War.

What If Carthage Won the Punic Wars?: An Alternative History of the Conflict Between Rome and Carthage profiles the conflict and examines how events may have gone quite differently for Europe if Rome had been defeated.

©2020 Charles River Editors (P)2020 Charles River Editors
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History

What listeners say about What If Carthage Won the Punic Wars?

Average Customer Ratings
Overall
  • 3 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1
Performance
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

misleading title

basically a rehash of the Punic wars and very little alternative history. did not enjoy.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Roman consuls

Entertaining read. I know this story very well but still got some new insights and backgrounds. The only annoying part was the narrator using intermittently "counsel" and "consul" with the former being the wrong pronunciation.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!