1) The corvus. The war was fought in Sicily. Because of its rough terrain the war was fought mainly at sea. Rome did not have a navy to speak of and built her first large navy. Her inexperienced sailors were not a match for the highly skilled ones of Carthage. Thus, the Romans equipped their ships with the corvus a boarding bridge with a heavy spike at the bottom to make up for her disadvantage. Instead of the complicated manoeuvre of heading the front of the ship towards the enemy ships to ram it, the Romans could flank it, pin it to the corvus and board it, which was easier. It proved successful. Rome won most of the naval battles.
2) The Roman rich. Rome lost most of its fleet in a storm. The Roman state was broke. Rich Romans financed the building of a new fleet. This fleet won the final battle of the war.
3) Hanno the Great. He was the leader of the anti-war faction in Carthage. He reduced the Carthaginian navy, giving the Romans time to rebuild its navy. When Carthage heard of this undertaking it stopped the demobilisation and built new ships to ensure it would be bigger. However, it was assembled quickly, its sailors were poorly trained and it was weighed down by reinforcements and supplies for the Carthaginian army in Sicily. It was a bad fighting force.
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In the second Punic War:
1) Hannibal lost his siege machines when he crossed the Alps in the winter to Italy. Without these he could not attack Rome. Instead he went to southern Italy.
2) The Romans adopted a strategy of attrition: they avoided open battle and harassed him with guerrilla tactics to wear him down.
3) Hannibal smallish invasion army needed Rome’s allies to switch sides to increase his forces. When this materialised in the south it proved insufficient. Moreover, the allies in central Italy remained loyal
4) The Romans intercepted and routed Hasdrubal’s’ army. He was bringing reinforcements and siege machines from Spain to Hannibal.
5) In Carthage the peace faction refused to send reinforcements to Hannibal from Africa
6) The Romans defeated the Carthaginians in Spain and they took over their Spanish territories. Reinforcements to Hannibal could no longer be sent from there.
7) The western Numidians switched alliance from Carthage to Rome. They supplied 2/3 of the Roman cavalry in the Battle of Zama, the last battle of the war, and played a key role in that victory.
The Third Punic War was no contest as Carthage power was greatly reduced after the second war.
