How did the defeat the Carthage in 146 bc affect rome

Rome benefitted from her victory in the Third Punic War (149-146 BC) less than from her victories in the previous two Punic Wars. By then Rome had already taken over Carthage’s overseas territories, her navy had achieved naval superiority in the western Mediterranean and she had broken Carthage’s military power. In 146 BC Rome took over the remaining territories of Carthage, her home ones, Tunisia and western Libya. However, territorial gains were not main aim of Rome. What she wanted was the destruction of Carthage. Her major gain was that now Rome asserted herself as the dominant power in the whole of the Mediterranean. In the same year Rome also annexed mainland Greece.

Rome benefitted more from her victories in the First and Second Punic Wars (364-241 BC and 218-201 BC) which were the events through which she became the dominant power in the Mediterranean. In the first war, Rome forced Syracuse, the most powerful of the Greek city-states in eastern and southern Sicily, to become a Roman ally and took over Carthage’s ports in western Sicily. Soon afterwards she seized Sardinia and Corsica, which were Carthaginian possessions. These three islands were crucial for the control of the sea routes of the western Mediterranean. During this war Rome also built a fleet which in the course of the second war proved to be the dominant fleet in the western basin of the Mediterranean. In the Second Punic War Rome took over the Carthaginian territories in southern Spain, gaining complete control of the western Mediterranean and depriving Carthage of her main source of wealth, the silver mines of Spain. She also made an alliance with Carthage’s Numidian neighbours in Algeria, who defected to Rome. With the peace treaty Rome demilitarised Carthage, reduced her navy to ten ships and imposed a fifty-year war indemnity.