Notes 5/6/15

Here are the notes from today....

• Roman Legion
• 5,000 soldiers, not in it for pay (not yet).
• The Roman army's elite, heavy, infantry.
• Recruited exclusively from Roman citizens.
• Group of eighty's a century.
• On horseback is the cavalry.
• Shield, sword, dagger, and armor and tunic.
• Carthage in the Punic war
• The Punic Wars (264-146 BCE)
• Rome vs Carthage
• 3 wars.
• 2 Empires Fighting for Control
• First Punic war (264-241 BCE).
• Naval battles for control of the strategically located island of Sicily. 
• Rome wins this one.
• The Carthaginian Empire Strikes Back
• 2nd Punic War (218-201 BCE)
• 29-year-old Carthaginian leader, Hannibal almost does the impossible: taking Rome.
• Attacks Rome from the North after crossing Iberia (Spain) and the Alps.
• Lays siege to much of the peninsula for 15 years, but he could never get to Rome.
• Third and Final war (149-146 BCE)
• Rome wanted to finally remove the threat of Carthage.
• Scipio, Tiberius Gracchus, and others mercilessly attacked the city.
• Carthage was burned for 17 days; the city's walls and buildings were utterly destroyed.
• When the war ended, the last 50,000 people in the city were sold into slavery.
• The rest of the Carthage's territories were annexed, and made into the Roman province of Africa.
• Total Destruction; End of an Empire
• Marcus Portius Cato the Elder was a politician who ended every speech by saying, "Delenda Carthage est," which means "Carthage must be destroyed." He got his wish.
• Economic Change; Social Upheaval
• Slaves poured into Italy (50,000 Carthaginians, 150,000 Greek prisoners of war).
• By the end of the 2nd century BCE, there were over a million slaves in Italy.
• Small farmers lost their land to aristocrats (for little or no money) if they couldn't pay their debts, sometimes because the men of the farm were fighting battles.
• Slaves did the work on the farms for the rich.
• The big farms became massive estates called latifundia.