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Nigel Bagnall

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The Punic Wars: Rome, Carthage, and the Struggle for the Mediterranean Hardcover – July 1, 2005

by Nigel Bagnall (Author)

4.4 35 ratings

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The Punic Wars triggered an era of astonishing human misfortune. Resulting from a mighty power struggle between the military confederation of Rome and the trading empire of Carthage between 264--241 B.C., 218--201 B.C., and 149--146 b.c., the wars were fought over a period of 118 years. Massive man-made devastation on both sides left RB.C.ome’s population radically depleted and Carthage razed and erased from the map.
Sir Nigel Bagnall brings his military experience and a modern professional eye to bear in analyzing the Punic Wars here. He marshals classic military strategists such as Livy, Polybius, and Diodorus to plot the wars’ campaigns in Spain, Africa, Sicily, and the Peloponnese, and follows Hannibal’s daring but unsuccessful strike into the heart of Italy.

But Bagnall goes beyond military strategy to discuss the force, structures, and politics of Rome and Carthage at their heights. And he contrasts their conduct of battle at strategic, operational, and tactical levels to show how they were governed by the same military principles used by nations today. His thought-provoking final chapter relates these wars’ lessons to modern times in an impressive argument for adapting the experience of the past to the needs of the future. While the history of the Punic Wars dates back over 2000 years, Bagnall’s comprehensive account demonstrates that this ancient conflict is remarkable both for its scope and its contemporary relevance.

Print length

368 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Thomas Dunne Books
Publication date

July 1, 2005
Dimensions

6.4 x 1.21 x 9.51 inches
ISBN-10

0312342144
ISBN-13

978-0312342142
See all details

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The Punic Wars, which lasted from 264 to 146 B.C., transformed Rome from a small, loosely aligned federation into a Mediterranean superpower. It's a story worth retelling, but because the wars unfolded often simultaneously and across such a vast region-from the Balkans to North Africa, from Spain to the Peloponnese-it is also a story difficult to tell. By treating each campaign separately, rather than in strict chronological order, the book offers a clear and well-organized military history. Bagnall, a former British Army Chief of the General Staff, is an expert on Rome's military innovations, such as their changes to the Greek phalanx and the introduction of the corvus (a naval boarding bridge). He excels in analyzing the spectacular military victories of Hannibal and Scipio Africanus, but the book fails to rise to the epic grandeur of its subject. Hannibal's crossing of the Alps is conveyed swiftly in workmanlike prose, and the battle scenes lack the vivid details necessary to give a visceral feel for the events described. Scant attention is paid to the leading personalities of the story, which is unfortunate because they include some of the most fascinating of ancients, including Xanthippus, the Spartan general whose ragtag army repulsed a Roman invasion of North Africa, and Archimedes, the great mathematician who died designing Syracuse's defense system. Only Cato, the venomous Roman Senator who demanded Carthage's annihilation, is accorded more than a passing description. Military history buffs may overlook these shortcomings and find this work of great value, but readers in search of a full narrative history should look elsewhere. Seven maps.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

The late Bagnall was a British soldier who saw combat in 1950s Malaya and rose to the top of the military profession, retiring in 1988. His expertise finds fruitful application in his examination of the Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage. There were three between 264 and 146 B.C.E., ending with the fulfillment of Cato's pitiless epigram delenda est Carthago ("Carthage must be destroyed"). Bagnall forthrightly applies a military perspective while being mindful of political influences on the origins and conduct of the wars. In particular, Bagnall appraises the grasp of strategy, operations, and tactics exhibited by the campaigns' generals. Two of the most famous, Hannibal and Scipio Africanus, favorably impress Bagnall, while generals who blundered do not earn the author's criticism so much as his commiseration over what went wrong, devastatingly so in the case of the Romans at the 216 B.C.E. Battle of Cannae. Ancient-history buffs acquainted with Adrian Goldsworthy's Punic Wars (2001) will be eager for Bagnall's concise and elegant insights. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Thomas Dunne Books; First Edition (July 1, 2005)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 368 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0312342144
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0312342142
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.45 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.4 x 1.21 x 9.51 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,035,506 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #26,487 in Military History (Books)

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4.4 35 ratings

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Jeremy A. Perron

TWO GREAT POWERS

Reviewed in the United States on January 31, 2011

This book was the first of two works by Sir Nigel Bagnall, who had been a field marshal in the British Army to which this book is dedicated. I had reviewed his later work, The Peloponnesian War: Athens, Sparta, and the Struggle for Greece , a short time ago. I was not a big fan of the other piece of history that this writer produced but I really liked this book. The Punic Wars is an incredible tale of two great civilizations that went on a collision course against each other that would result with one becoming a world power and the other completely annihilated. When writing about each of the three wars Bagnall focuses on one theater at a time, telling each theater's story rather than proceeding in complete chronological order. This helps the book flow better and does not harm the general narrative.

Bagnall starts of by giving the reader a bit of background of the two major civilizations; we know more about the Romans of course because they were not destroyed as thoroughly as they destroyed Carthage. He traces the rise of the two cities from mere cities to the heart of minor empires in the Mediterranean, one a land power and the other a sea power. Both cities have to adapt when they fought each other in the First Punic War. Rome would create a navy that would overtake Carthage, and Carthage would also learn how to use its natural military advantages such as trained elephants and a diverse Mercenary army composed of its subject peoples.

The Second Punic War focuses on the great general, Hannibal Barca. His training under his father, Hamilcar, and his rise in Spain are covered. Hannibal crosses the Alps and, for years, ravages Italy and nearly destroys Rome. The famous Fabius Maximus creates what is known as the `Fabian Strategy` in order to defend against Hanibal, that is do not fight him directly only indirectly by cutting supply lines and forms of harassment. The book covers how Rome had a hard time sticking to this strategy until the rise of Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus who would ultimately beat Hannibal.

"On taking up his appointment, Scipio faced the task of welding a disparate lot into a cohesive fighting force: there were the dispirited survivors of the defeated legions, the raw reinforcements fresh out of Italy, and Spanish mercenaries of uncertain loyalty. No light task for a young man, especially one whose close relation had so intimately associated with disasters. But Publius Cornelius Scipio (later given the cognomen Africanus) was remarkable. As Polybius says, he was `perhaps the most illustrious man of any born before the present generation', and one of his first acts was to show his trust in Marcellus, the man who had striven so hard to rally the survivors of the two Scipios' shattered army, but who could now well be regarded as an awkward rival." p.206

The Third Punic War would be the end of mighty Carthage. The city would be defeated, raised, and destroyed by Scipio's grandson. The impact of Carthage, fulfilling the dream of Cato the Elder, would be erased even though another one of Scipio's own grandsons would try to argue against it.

"He pleaded that though Rome's position as the dominant power should be preserved, Carthage should not be destroyed as a rival. Were this to occur, there would be no check on Rome's arrogant disregard for the legitimate interests and the concerns of smaller states. She would lose all sense of shame when there was nobody of stature to pass judgment on her conduct and stand up for the rights of others. Moreover, in the absence of any external threat, the Roman Confederation would be in danger of disintegrating as fractious political and social groups pursued their own self-interested ends." p.307

I highly recommend this book to anyone. It is a thrilling read involving one of the greatest struggles in the history of the world: Rome and Carthage. Not until the Cold War would the world see another quite like it. This work of Nigel Bagnall was much stronger than his later work on the Peloponnesian War; however I leave open the possibility that the reason for his Punic Wars being easier to understand maybe due to the fact the the Punic Wars are an easier conflict to understand compared to the Peloponnesian War.

Helpful

Bill Bruno

A fine narrative history of the Punic Wars enhanced by insightful military analysis

Reviewed in the United States on January 30, 2015

As far as second careers go, there are worse things for a career military man to do than write histories of two of the most famous conflicts in ancient history. Retired UK Field Marshal Nigel Bagnall first of these, in order of writing if not in order of historic occurrence, is his fine history of the Punic Wars, the long (the first two anyway) and bloody conflicts that saw Carthage's extermination and Rome's ascendancy as the paramount central and western Mediterranean power.

He starts with an overall survey of the two combatants with a précis of their respective histories, constitutions, military forces and religions. It's a good backgrounder although the relevance of the religions isn't made manifest in the book. His survey of Sicily is particularly good with an emphasis on Syracuse as a counterbalance to Carthage's power in Sicily and the chapter also presages his take on the causes of the First Punic War by arguing there were no overwhelming strategic reasons for the land-bound Rome to go to war with the maritime Carthage. The reasons sprang from unstable politics in what could be called a neutral zone in eastern Sicily between Rome and Carthage. The Roman move in Messana (which included evicting the Carthaginian garrison) which started the First Punic War is argued by Bagnall to be an act of short-term opportunism against a Carthage that posed no threat to Rome. Here I think Bagnall overlooks what Rome would've perceived as the importance of the Syracusan counterweight as a Carthaginian foothold there could've blocked off any future Roman intervention against a future move against Syracuse.

His narrative of the First Punic War sets the tone for the whole book. The narrative style is lucid and engaging and interspersed with his expert military analysis. One good example on a tactical level is Xanthippus correcting the earlier Carthaginian error of defending on broken ground which nullified their advantage in cavalry with an open-ground battle at Tunis where he crushed the Roman army.
His analyses are the strongest draw. His extended commentary (a whole chapter after the close of the First Punic War) breaks down, for the uninitiated, the difference between the strategic, operational and tactical levels of warfare. His analysis of the Roman and Carthaginian efforts will follow that breakdown. Strategically, he asserts that the opportunistic nature of Rome’s move into Messana also meant that they started with no coherent strategy. Carthage arguably missed a strategic opportunity in not using its naval assets to go on the offensive in Italy, something which Hannibal would rectify. Bagnall’s speculation that Carthage chose a more defensive strategy because of early reverses that led them to a permanent sense of tactical inferiority against the Romans is a good one. Again, this is something that Hannibal would rectify in the rematch. Rome also made the mistake of diffusive initiatives and failed to develop an effective cavalry arm. They would pay a far higher price for that in the next conflict.

He even subjects the conflicts of the entr’acte to this analysis, for example faulting the Illyrians in the losing war against Rome with objectives that their force structure couldn’t support. In fact, a strong point of this book is a close look at those conflicts with the Carthaginian conquest of Spain being particularly important for future events while Rome’s essentially shaking down a weakened Carthage for Sardinia and Corsica does much to explain Carthage’s desire for revenge.
Bagnall also does a fine job with the Second Punic War. He highlights Hannibal’s successful use of maneuver and mobile forces in his three epic victories at the Trebbia, Lake Trasimene and Cannae and overall illumines how much of Carthage’s effort in Italy owed to Hannibal’s genius. He explains Hannibal’s strategy as being fundamentally political. Hannibal didn’t expect to be able to take and burn down Rome, but he could break its political hold on its allies but repeatedly smashing Rome’s armies. This required that he exploit his superior operational and tactical mobility. However, as Bagnall observes, once Hannibal acquired allies which defected from Rome, his need to protect them smothered that flexibility.

His take on the Spanish and African campaigns of Scipio Africanus illustrates another argument of the book which is that victory would go to the party that could best move away from its preexisting doctinres. For example, Scipio’s willingness to bypass the Carthaginian armies to effect a coup de main against the Carthaginian base at Nova Carthago. Likewise, his brilliant victory at Ilipa was a function of his ability to wrong-foot the Carthaginian’s through a change in the disposition of his army.

The Third Punic War isn’t given as much coverage but it’s still done well. Bagnall’s epilogue is a good summing up of the strategic/operational/tactical lessons learned but I thought his attempt to analogize those to contemporary (for 1990) politics was awkward and misplaced. There are surely better ways to address the idea of NATO military preparedness, for example, then drawing attention to Carthage’s lack thereof at the onset of the First Punic War.

Although Bagnall became a fellow at Oxford's Balliol College after retirement, he was not a professional historian and this work is more of a narrative book than a scholarly one. You won't find indications of original research, there are no foot/endnotes and only a limited bibliography. On the other hand, where the classical sources conflict, his comparative analyses are plausible. It is a fine work nonetheless and I'd certainly recommend it as an introduction to the subject especially as it covers all three of the Punic Wars at once.

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John Matlock

Splendid History Applicable to Today

Reviewed in the United States on August 15, 2005

The late Field Marshall Sir Nigel Bagnall has done something in this book that is unique in my reading experience.

First, this book is a history of the Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage. It is a military history, written from the standpoint of a senior military officer who is able to see and understand what the military of both sides were doing.

Second, this book goes beyond the military history of the two countries to explain the internal workings, the culture, the commercial activities of the two countries. He is then able to relate these points to the overall battle.

Third, the reason to study history is to be able to relate what happened to what is happening now. And he is able to relate these wars from so long ago to the conflict between the Soviet Union and the West.

Fourth, at the beginning of wars, the finding of competant generals has been a problem. This was true in the Punic wars. This was certainly true in the American Civil War (witness the number of generals Lincoln put in charge of the Army of the Potomac). And it was true at the start of World War II on the part of both the British and the Americans. In the short wars of the future, this cannot be allowed to happen.

Splendid history with direct applicability to modern times.

3 people found this helpful

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Absolutely wonderful novel. Very easy to follow and well written

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Absolutely wonderful novel. Very easy to follow and well written. Great start for people who are just getting into Roman history or those who want more detail about the time period they already love.