History of Money, Banking, and Trade
A historical look at the development and evolution of money, banking, and trade. From the ancient civilizations to the present.
History of Money, Banking, and Trade
Episode 36. When Merchants Became Warriors: Carthage's Fatal Transformation
The extraordinary transformation of Carthage from modest Phoenician colony to Mediterranean superpower represents one of history's most remarkable economic and political metamorphoses. Founded by traders seeking refuge from Assyrian control, Carthage rapidly evolved beyond its founders' wildest ambitions, developing a sophisticated republican government that balanced aristocratic councils with elected officials and popular assemblies – a system so effective it impressed even Aristotle.
While most ancient powers relied on simple trade and currency systems, the Carthaginians pioneered complex credit mechanisms and vast trading networks that stretched across the Mediterranean and deep into Africa via trans-Saharan routes. Their strategic control of key maritime passages, including the Straits of Gibraltar, revealed their sophisticated understanding of economic power. The city itself became an ancient Manhattan, with six-story buildings housing ambitious people seeking fortune through maritime ventures.
This episode explores Carthage's complex relationship with Rome, beginning with early treaties that established them as the dominant Mediterranean power. We trace how mutual fear rather than territorial ambition sparked the First Punic War, and reveal Carthage's most revolutionary innovation – assembly-line shipbuilding that allowed them to construct 200 warships in under two months, essentially inventing mass production 2,500 years before Henry Ford. Archaeological evidence confirms this proto-industrial method used marked components produced separately before final assembly.
Following their defeat in the First Punic War and the subsequent Mercenary War crisis, we follow Hamilcar Barca's brilliant pivot from sea power to land power as he rebuilt Carthage's fortunes in southern Spain. The rich silver mines and abundant manpower there transformed their economy and military capabilities, setting the stage for Hannibal's famous confrontation with Rome. This compelling story illuminates how commercial innovations – from complex credit systems to proto-industrial manufacturing – created tremendous wealth but ultimately couldn't protect Carthage when military conflict arrived.
Curious about the stunning reversal that saw Rome transform from land power to naval dominance? Listen now to discover how economic systems intertwine with political power in ways that resonate through history to our modern world.
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Hi, I'm Mike D. This is the History of Money, banking and Trade podcast. When we last left off, we were discussing Carthaginian commercial innovations and their political transformation, long before Rome had emerged as a regional superpower. This metamorphosis allowed Carthage to reign as the wealthiest maritime empire of its time, pioneering trade techniques that would reshape ancient commerce forever. Despite the fact that it was born as a distant colony of the Phoenician traders seeking to escape from Assyrian control, carthage rapidly evolved beyond its founders' wildest ambitions. Unlike their Phoenician ancestors, who operated as merchant vassals under regional powers, the Carthaginians developed complete political independence alongside unprecedented commercial dominance. Their sophisticated republic balanced aristocratic councils with elected officials and popular assemblies a system so effective it impressed even Aristotle and likely influenced Rome's own republican government. Carthage expanded its maritime trade and expanded trans-Saharan trade routes, and created complex credit systems that challenge our modern assumptions about ancient economies. However, as Greek expansion threatened their interests in Sicily, carthage transformed from a purely commercial power to a naval military force, beginning a complex 180-year struggle just to maintain control of western Sicily. The city itself became an ancient version of Manhattan, a densely populated city with six-story apartment housing that allowed for ambitious people from across the Mediterranean to seek fortune through maritime adventures. During peaceful periods, carthage consistently demonstrated remarkable economic resilience, rebuilding their treasury so effectively. It would later alarm Roman senators observing their commercial vigor. Through conflicts with Syracuse, threats from Alexander the Great plagues, rebellions and attempted coups, carthage maintained its Republican institutions while establishing control over crucial trade routes. Their strategic focus on dominating the Straits of Gibraltar, complete with tales of sea monsters to discourage competitors, reveals how thoroughly they understood the economics of Mediterranean power. How thoroughly they understood the economics of Mediterranean power In 348 BCE.
Speaker 1:Before all these wars with the Greeks in Sicily were done, a new treaty was signed between Rome and Carthage. The treaty basically laid out the rules between the two republics. So basically, what it said was if Roman or Carthaginian merchants had to stop to resupply in other states' territories, they shouldn't harm the locals and must leave within five days. The Romans were allowed to free trade with the Carthaginians in Sicily, while they were banned from trading in Sardinia, spain and Africa. On the other hand, the Carthaginians were free to trade in Roman lands. Additionally, romans were not allowed to plunder or start colonies in those territories. Carthage was forbidden from conquering any cities in Italy. It doesn't mention anything about Sicily.
Speaker 1:Rome had grown a lot stronger since the original treaty was signed in 509 BCE. Yet it appears that Rome was still clearly on the short end of the stick. Many have noticed it was more of a trade treaty than anything else. Since Carthage was more interested in long-distance trade, that type of treaty would have interested them more. But Rome wasn't really into long-distance trade because, first of all, they weren't even a sea power, they were a land power and secondly, rome was more concerned with militaristic expansion, not so much trade expansion. But it still begs the question why Rome would agree to assume that kind of treaty when Carthage was kind of at a low point, coming off the 100 plus years of fighting in Sicily.
Speaker 1:A third treaty was signed between Rome and Carthage in 306 BCE. Treaty was signed between Rome and Carthage in 306 BCE. The issue with this treaty was there was no proof of it being signed, or even if there was a treaty at all. However, some reports by Romans indicated that it did in fact exist. Supposedly this treaty in 306 BCE had banned Romans from entering Sicily and cut Carthaginians from entering into Italy. If this is true, then the First Punic War would have been blamed on the Romans. Thus many Romans have disregarded it. However, many historians tend to believe that this agreement existed, as it fit the international politics at the time. The Romans had gained hegemony over most of Italy, except for the southern portion, where the Greeks still had colonies. The Carthaginians were exhausted from all those years of war in Sicily, so it would make a lot of sense for Carthage to sign this deal, because the last thing that they probably wanted to do was have to deal with the Romans coming into Sicily as well. The Romans also had to deal with the various wars that they had encountered to conquer Sicily, so they may not have been ready to go to war with Carthage either, so making sure that neither didn't want to accroach on each other in Italy or in Sicily probably would have been good for both sides.
Speaker 1:Despite all this, carthage had a decent reserve of precious metals. Gold was coming in from the West and Sub-Saharan Africa, and silver was coming from southeastern Spain. This wealth fueled the economy of the 3rd century BCE Carthage and paid the Barquid armies that conquered southern Iberia. While they were dealing with Sicily, around 300 BCE, a handful of other great cities had become more than regional powers Rome, carthage, alexandria and Antioch had populations greater than 100,000 people by the 2nd century BCE. The Mediterranean basin contained between 35 and 50 million people, approximately double the level that it had in the 8th century BCE. This growth was especially noticeable in thinly populated areas, where they could start to feel the pressure for the struggle for resources that would reshape the Mediterranean. Carthage was wealthy, but it still needed to hire mercenaries to protect its resources, as it didn't have enough manpower and possibly even the willpower. It also didn't have the adequate grain production and timber. This was particularly the reason why Carthage needed Sicily for its grain and Sardinia for its timber, needed Sicily for its grain and Sardinia for its timber.
Speaker 1:In the 3rd century BCE, rome, carthage and the Hellenistic monarchies of the east would all interact. All had their strengths and weaknesses, but only Carthage was a true sea power. Everything was good until 289 BCE when Agathocles died and then all hell broke loose in Sicily again, as petty tyrants rose up. A new tyrant wanted to plunder western Sicily because he thought it'd be easy money. However, he was defeated and overthrown in 280 BCE. The Carthaginians were upset and decided to attack Syracuse.
Speaker 1:The Greeks asked the king Ephesus, who was fighting for the Romans in Italy, for help. Apparently, the Carthaginians got word of this and sent some dignitaries to the Romans to negotiate a treaty so that they can kind of help each other out. In essence, this new treaty would allow for Carthage to aid Rome with a navy if the Greeks were going to continue to attack them, and Rome would send land troops to Carthage and their war against the Greeks. Apparently, the Carthaginians were completely caught off guard by the sheer speed of those Greeks that came to the aid of the Syracusans and decided it's best to negotiate with the king who went by the name of Pyrrhus. As part of the negotiations, they offered them money and shipped them back to Italy, but apparently he had declined, because rumor has it that he wanted to go to Africa and conquer Carthage. Now it's unclear if that was true or not, but he had an adventurous personality, so that's why some people think that he may have planned on doing it all along. Instead, it sounds like he wanted to build his own empire in western sicily. But the biggest problem with him was he tended to treat his allies like dirt and they didn't take too kindly to it, and they started to leave him, and therefore he probably didn't have a force necessary to conquer Carthage, let alone Western Sicily. However, the situation worsened in Italy and Pyrrhus needed to go back, and once he was gone, carthage retook the towns in Western Sicily. However, up north in Italy, pyrrhus was defeated by the Romans by 270 BCE.
Speaker 1:The Romans controlled most of Italy and, despite the good relations, the Carthaginians began to become very weary of the Romans. Things started to take a turn when Syracuse wanted to take over Messina in 264 BCE. Apparently, the people of Messina called out for help from the Romans and the Carthaginians also to help fend off the Syracusans. Carthage arrived first and Rome arrived second, but apparently the people of Messina felt closer to their Latin brethren due to their Italian background and sent the Carthaginians away. And once again, the Carthaginians handled this kind of crazy because the commander of their forces was crucified, supposedly for his quote stupidity.
Speaker 1:Almost immediately, carthage sent a new force to Sicily. While their diplomats began to gather allies, in a surprising turn of events, the Carthaginians found them in Syracuse. Now allies, syracuse and Carthage, the two most powerful forces on Sicily, laid siege to Messina. Seeing a new unified Sicilian force, the Romans had second thoughts of meddling on the island affairs. One of the Roman consuls sent in to negotiate an offer, but both of the Carthaginians and the Syracusans declined, effectively starting a conflict that was to be known as the First Punic War.
Speaker 1:Now, if you recall, there is some debate. If the Treaty of 306 existed If it did exist then that means Rome would have broken the treaty by sending troops to Messina, because Messina was in Sicily. From a Roman point of view, the alliance with Syracuse would have certainly set off alarm bells, as you would have had a Greek and Carthage alliance just south of your border. It sounds like the Syracusans and the Carthaginians didn't expect Rome to fight them, considering that they wanted to go to the negotiating table almost instantly. The fact remains is this war was brought on by nothing else but fear, as both sides feared that the other was going to attack, and once it started, there was no putting the genie back in the bottle.
Speaker 1:Rome sent about 16,000 troops into Sicily and defeated the Syracusans and then Carthaginians. Both retreated to their own territories and therefore didn't act in unison, and that probably hurt their chances of defeating Rome right away. The Romans first attacked Syracuse, while Carthage didn't do anything and therefore it had to fend for itself. This inaction possibly led to its defeat in the long run. It sounds like Carthage just assumed that Syracuse would be able to hold off due to its walled city, syracuse saw the writing on the wall and sued for peace almost immediately. Now, because of Carthage's inaction, it lost its main ally and probably its only hopes of winning the war. Now Syracuse had effectively switched sides and was supplying Roman soldiers. While all this was happening, the other half of the Roman army was marching on Carthage territories. Some of these towns saw what was happening and defected almost immediately.
Speaker 1:Carthage, from here on out, didn't have a large enough army to take on the Roman troops and therefore they maintained a defensive posture to try to hold off the Romans. While the stalemate was happening, in 262 BCE, a large mercenary army was gathering in Africa and was sent to Sicily. The largest Greek ally in Sicily, acragas, was supplying troops on both sides. In 261, a famine hit Akragas, and it was also the same city that had documented the use of war elephants that was used by Carthage. But because of the famine, it appears that these tactics were ineffective and the Carthaginians snuck away in the middle of the night, leaving the city undefended, and that resulted in the city being sacked and the citizens taken into slavery.
Speaker 1:The one thing a lot of historians can't understand is why Carthage, with his great navy didn't stop Rome from transporting troops from Italy into Sicily. You would have thought that they would have been able to take advantage of that. One clear thing that they did have an advantage of Rome was a great land power. Carthage was the great sea power, so there's really no reason why Rome should have been able to transport troops through the sea, even if it was a narrow passage. In the end, from my perspective, it appears to me that Carthage had really poor leadership at the top, and this ultimately doomed it to defeat. What's worse is the inaction by Carthage, which allowed Rome to build their own little navy. In fact, rome started to build their own versions of the Quincarim because they had captured one from Carthage and Messina and tried to re-engineer their own version of it. This particular ship had five rows of oars, which would have made it very powerful and fast, but would have been very complex to build.
Speaker 1:The one thing that Carthage had was obviously its great navy, but the fact was is they were able to build ships so quickly, and even complex ships From some of the ancient writers, including Pliny the Elder. He indicated that they couldn't build over 200 ships in less than two months, but for the longest time. People really didn't take all that seriously until a shipwreck was discovered of an old Phoenician ship, and what they discovered in the shipwreck was the Phoenician ship had markings on it that seemed to indicate, when they were building these ships, the section that was built in a separate location, and they would mark off where the particular portion would be assembled in the final assembly. So in other words, the Phoenicians were the Henry Fords. 2,500 years before the Model T and mass production, the Phoenicians had basically started sort of an industrial revolution in ship building. That's why they can build so many ships so quickly, and even ships that would have been extremely complex for nations such as Rome. In addition, because they had this mass production of ship building, this also would have meant that they could build ships a lot cheaper than places like Rome and even places like Greece.
Speaker 1:Rome tried to re-engineer Carthage shipbuilding, but it didn't quite work out all that well at first for a few reasons. For one, they didn't quite have the expertise to build these ships with pure precision that the Phoenicians had built and, just as importantly, they didn't have the expert sailors and the commanders manning the ships. Rome was a land power, not a sea power, and if it was going to take to the sea, it would have to move down the learning curve and figure things out a bit, but that could take decades, if not centuries. The one thing Rome did figure out was a way to use its land power on the sea by building and designing a bridge that could connect a Roman ship to a Carthaginian ship they called this the corvus and it would have a spike on the end of it of which it would secure itself to the other ship, and then the Roman marines would storm the other ship. If it was manned by Carthage or an ally, it appears that it worked, but it was very top heavy and it made it extremely hard to maneuver, and eventually it sounds like it was discontinued for a simpler version of it. Eventually, rome gained a supreme upper hand and even handed Carthage a major sea battle defeat in 260 BCE in the Battle of Melilla, and then another defeat near Sardinia in 258 BCE. The commander returned to Carthage where he was crucified for his losses.
Speaker 1:In a weird twist, carthage had more success in land battles in Sicily, but these land battles were short-lived and were generally pushed back after their victories. But it just goes to show you how things were changing. The war slowed to a crawl as Rome realized that certain strongholds in Sicily were too hard to take from Carthage. So they looked to a Gothic lease playbook and decided to sail to Africa to take the war to the home front. It sounds like Carthage got wind of this plan through certain spies or some other sources, and they tried to stop Rome from sailing from Sicily. But they were defeated in a sea battle, in part because they couldn't stop Roman marines from boarding Carthage ships. For as great as they were on the sea, carthage either couldn't or wouldn't adjust to new battle tactics.
Speaker 1:Carthage was utterly unprepared for land battles in Africa. At first, for some crazy reason, the Roman Senate called about half of the army back to Rome, leaving only about 15,000 men in Africa. Even then, carthage was defeated and its outer hinterlands were plundered and local Libyans began to revolt. Carthage asked for peace, but the Roman council wanted Carthage to leave Sicily and Sardinia, something Carthage was not prepared to do. Another thing was its hinterland was being plundered, so therefore the city of Carthage was being inundated with refugees In 255 BCE, with refugees In 255 BCE. Carthage turned its military over to Spartan mercenary forces, where they were able to push the Romans out of Africa.
Speaker 1:Rome could have had a good deal at the time and ended the war, but because of its hubris the war went on. What made it worse was when the Roman fleet went back to Rome it got caught in a storm and they lost about half of their navy. Some sources say that up to 90,000 men had drowned. So they could have had a good deal when they were in control of Northern Africa, but now they lost half of their navy. But either way, carththage, their hold on Sicily was tenuous at best and it was really just a matter of time before they lost it. Rome rebuilt its navy and sailed back to Africa, but once again it was damaged by a bad storm, and after 253 BCE the Corvus was no longer mentioned in the historical record. The reason being is not really known, but I suspect that it was because it was top heavy, and if you sail in a storm with your ship that's not very stable. It's almost certainly going to be a death trap for the sailors that are on board. So they probably figured out that it just wasn't worth the risk anymore.
Speaker 1:By 247 BCE, carthage was reduced to a guerrilla-style warfare in Sicily, as it couldn't afford a large mercenary army anymore. This is precisely how Hamilcar got the name Hamilcar Barca, because that means lightning. So essentially, carthage relied on disrupting supply lines, and the war was in a stalemate at the time and getting very expensive for both sides and getting very expensive for both sides. In a weird way, this does remind me a lot of World War I parallels where Germany and the Central Powers were going bankrupt, along with the UK, france and Italy. The war would drag down for so long for both sides whether it's the Punic War or World War I that whoever was going to lose was going to be in deep financial trouble, and the winner, for that matter, was going to be in deep financial trouble as well.
Speaker 1:Carthage went to Egypt and asked for a loan of about 2,000 talents from Ptolemaic Egypt, specifically from Ptolemy II, but their request was refused, likely because Egypt was hesitant to financially support Carthage. In addition, it appears that Ptolemy wanted to maintain a friendly relationship with Rome as well. Any financial support for the enemy certainly would have put a strain on that relationship. The Roman Senate, on the other hand, had asked Rome's wealthiest citizens for loans to finance the reconstruction of one ship, each repayable from the reparations that were going to be imposed on Carthage once the war was won. This new fleet, built from loan proceeds, was able to set up a blockade of Carthaginian garrisons. Was able to set up a blockade of Carthaginian garrisons. Carthage assembled a fleet which attempted to relieve them, but it was destroyed at the Battle of Agates Islands in 241 BCE.
Speaker 1:Carthage had no choice but to sue for peace, since Rome had exhausted so much financially, militarily and the sheer loss of life. Well, they were going to ask for a lot. First off, carthage was going to lose Sicily and all the smaller surrounding islands. Carthage had to then pay a thousand talents up front and then another 2,200 talents over the course of 10 years. This would equate to approximately 96 metric tons of silver. They agreed in the peace process that they would return any kind of prisoners of war and they wouldn't attack each other's allies. And in reality, what they were getting at was Carthage wouldn't attack Syracuse, because Syracuse was now an independent ally of Rome.
Speaker 1:Lastly, neither side could recruit soldiers from each other's land. In other words, rome didn't want Carthage to recruit mercenary soldiers from Italy. However, rome did not ban Carthage from trading with Sicily or Italy. This was probably good for both parties and potentially bad at the same time, because it appears that trade was obviously good for both sides, or else they wouldn't have allowed it to continue. So it was good for Rome and it was obviously good for Carthage. The problem with this is that it may have an unintended consequence, in that it may have inadvertently caused the Second and Third Punic Wars. But either way, at this moment Carthage was completely broke and its fleet was destroyed, so long-distance trade overseas was going to be a challenge in the short term. In the end, carthage had lost most of its prized possessions and its naval reputation was destroyed While Carthage was far from being done. It would never be the same afterward. So the First Punic War was officially over. Carthage was broke, but now Carthage had a major problem on its hands.
Speaker 1:Carthage had always relied on mercenary soldiers, and approximately 20,000 of them had just returned to Africa looking to get paid their fair share, of which Carthage didn't have anything. As such, the leadership of Carthage was sent out to handle negotiation offers with the mercenary soldiers to see about lowering the fees, but the soldiers had outright rejected this. For one, they wanted their pay that they signed up for, and another thing was they were upset that the person that was doing the negotiations wasn't Hamilcar Barca. So the soldiers did the best thing that they could. They marched onto Tunis and captured it. In the end they ended up getting their pay and also negotiated pay for the Libyan soldiers, who apparently weren't supposed to earn anything anyway. But in 241 BCE there was a coup among the leadership of the mercenary soldiers and they decided that you know what? Let's just take one better Instead of waiting on the pay. Why don't we just go to Carthage and plunder and get more anyway? So they figured, let's get some real money. This would be known as the Mercenary War.
Speaker 1:Soon enough, carthage was under a blockade and Carthage called up Hamilcar Barca to put down the rebellion of which Utica was besieged. Even mercenaries on Sardinia rebelled and took over the entire island, rebelled and took over the entire island. One of the biggest issues that Carthage had was there were two main leaders, hanno and Hamilcar, who had become political enemies, but they needed to be united in order to put down this rebellion. It sounds like Hanno was outright refusing to help Hamilcar because he couldn't put his political differences aside. Or maybe there was a bit of jealousy because he was clearly favored by this point, as Hamilcar was a much better general, and everybody could see it. In fact, carthaginian politicians allowed their soldiers to choose their general, and they overwhelmingly chose Hamilcar, and therefore a more competent commander was needed to be found to replace Hanau.
Speaker 1:By this time, libyan independence movement had gained so much steam that they were out there minting their own coins. They found a willing trade partner with Greeks and Romans. Of course, the Carthaginians tried to intercept any kind of trade that was happening between the Libyans and the Romans. After the Romans had protested, the Carthaginians stopped interfering. However, something interesting happened. This diplomatic approach seemed to work because the Romans cut off trade with the Libyans.
Speaker 1:On top of that, rome freed a lot of prisoners of war, of which they were used by the Carthaginians to fight off the rebels from Libya. Syracuse went ahead and sent some aid because, in their minds, it was probably better for them to have a stronger Carthage, because they could counterbalance Rome. However, despite all the help, rome was still able to take control of Sardinia and Corsica, and Carthage could do nothing about it. Even though Hamilcar was outnumbered, he was able to successfully ambush the Libyans and force them to retreat to the mountains. Once they retreated to the mountains, hamilcar was able to close off all the exits from the mountain passes. Whether it's true or not, the rebels were trapped for so long that they had resorted to cannibalism. With their numbers dwindling, the Carthaginians closed in and massacred any remaining rebels. From there he moved back to Tunis and who was able to crush most of the mercenaries and captured and publicly executed its leaders.
Speaker 1:By 237 BCE, all the cities and territories that had rebelled were back under control of Carthage. Maybe it was a new and improved Carthage, because they had just been humbled, but they were much more lenient towards the cities and territories that had rebelled and going forward. They were much more lenient towards the cities and territories that had rebelled and going forward. They were much more lenient in the way they had ruled the people in its hinterland and outer territories. As the dust settled, Hamilcar Barca and his party had established itself as the new leaders of Carthage, overtaking Hanel the Great and his party.
Speaker 1:He initially wanted to get Sardinia back, but Rome shut that down. Therefore, he switched gears and transformed Carthage from a sea power to a land power. By looking back towards the Iberian Peninsula, which is modern Spain, he wanted to use this place as his jumping off point to rebuild his empire and economy. He accomplished this by building a formidable cavalry and war elephants. So in 237 BCE, carthage started its expansion back into southern Spain. It sounds like it was a mix of re-establishing trade, either with trade colonies or outright conquering cities that didn't want to play ball. So it was a mix of leniency and brutality when re-establishing colonies in southern Spain.
Speaker 1:With him on his expedition to Spain was his brother-in-law, hasdrubal, and his famous son Hannibal. Hannibal had made a pledge to his father that he would never be friends with Rome. For Hamilcar, he believed that he had every reason to hate the Romans because he believed them to be untrustworthy and oath-breaking imperialists. It is kind of ironic that he's calling the Romans imperialists when he's in southern Spain taking over cities and towns. Hamilcar died in 229 BCE in an unknown battle against an unknown tribe.
Speaker 1:Hasdrubal, being his successor, founded New Carthage, or the New City. Hasdrubal, for his part, sent wealth, horses and slaves back to Carthage from Spain. This was vital for rebuilding the Carthage economy. Now there's a couple interesting things about Hasdrubal that aren't widely discussed. For one, he apparently became Hellenized, as he may have converted to worshiping Greek deities Zeus and Hercules. The second thing was he spoke and wrote in Greek, as did most of the elite and commercial Carthaginians, while relations with Greek-speaking Ptolemaic Egypt were close. The third thing Hannibal tended to look for allies, as he was a rational statesman far closer to William III than, say, alexander the Great or Napoleon. The fact is, spain was probably the best place to rebuild an ancient economy.
Speaker 1:Spain had an abundance of natural resources, especially metals, but more particularly was the amount of silver that was present. The way silver was extracted was the mines were owned by the states, but they leased the rights out to private contractors. As the mines extracted the silver, the treasury in Carthage was refilled after the first Punic Wars and then the Mercenary War had drained all its wealth. The silver content was so pure in Spain that its coins that were minted weren't as debased as the older coins in Carthage. The Iberian Peninsula, also due to its population size, allowed Carthage to raise a large land army of around 60,000 soldiers and around 8,000 cavalry men. This growth certainly didn't go unnoticed by Rome. But either way, hasdrubal agreed not to send any troops into the north of Spain, but this was perfectly fine with him, as he was basically just concerned with southern Spain. Anyway, things were generally fine and peaceful, but things changed in 221 BCE, when Hasdrubal was assassinated and Hannibal took over.
Speaker 1:When Hasdrubal was assassinated and Hannibal took over, hannibal, as you probably are well aware of, was a very capable general, and that's putting it lightly. As such, hannibal defeated local armies on the Iberian Peninsula and doubled the size of the Carthage presence in Spain. But the issue was he was expanding farther north and Rome was getting concerned that they might move into southern Gaul. The final straw was Hannibal besieged Saguntum in 219 BCE, which was an ally to Rome. Rome for seven months did nothing to help out, but instead argued about what to do. Finally, an emissary was sent to Carthage, where they asked if Hannibal was acting on behalf of the state or if he was a general that had gone rogue.
Speaker 1:But Carthage leaders refused to hand over Hannibal and thus the next Punic war had begun, despite both sides not really wanting it, because trade was flourishing between each other. In a weird way it reminds me of the situation between the UK and Germany in 1914, in that both sides' war would have made no sense economically because they had very strong trade ties, the difference being the obvious in that the UK and Germany had never been to war against each other, whereas Rome and Carthage had just come off their first Punic War. One thing that would show some kind of commonality between the two situations was the amount of mistrust that both sides would have had amongst each other. That would have been leading up to the war. Just like Germany had been preparing for World War I well in advance with its Schlieffen plan, carthage was preparing for war, as it had raised about 125,000 soldiers, while Rome had only about 71,000 soldiers. However, rome's navy was approximately twice as large and the ships were much better built. So, in other words, rome and Carthage had essentially flipped their historical strengths leading up to the second Punic War.
Speaker 1:So this is the reason why Carthage didn't do an invasion through the sea, and I always wondered why that was the case, because we all know the story of Hannibal leading his troops through the Alps and surprising the Roman senates and generals when they kind of appeared out of nowhere. But it was never really clear to me as to why Carthage would take that kind of risk going through the Alps when they were historically a sea power. The fact is, carthage's navy was destroyed and was never fully rebuilt after the first Pinnock War and then back during the Mercenary War. And that doesn't even include the fact that it had been centuries of fighting with the Greeks in Sicily. And let us not forget, carthage was founded as a Phoenician trade colony. The Phoenicians were never fighters, they were traders. So to think the people of Tyre would eventually become a land power was unthinkable when Dido was setting up her village overlooking the Mediterranean, was unthinkable when Dido was setting up her village overlooking the Mediterranean.
Speaker 1:I want to thank you for taking your time to listen. This is going to be a bit of a shorter episode. I was initially planning on combining the two episodes, but what happened was I just started using a different software to record this, because I want to start making these into video and that's not going to happen this particular case, but the next set of episodes I plan on discussing China. Once I start discussing ancient China, I think what I'm going to do is put out these videos in audio format and then also put them out in video format for a bit and see if that kind of works out. I'm not sure if it will, but it might work out. So we'll see how that goes.
Speaker 1:But what happened was is when I was recording this particular episode, I kind of screwed up the microphone and the episode was like an hour and a half long and I went back in and I was basically editing it and it just sounded terrible. So then I had to basically record the whole entire thing all over again. So this is the second record and I wanted to have it out by this upcoming Tuesday, and if I do the whole entire episode it's just not going to happen and plus I have other obligations that are outside of this podcast so I have to do other things. So unfortunately I won't be able to do the whole entire thing, so I have to cut this kind of in half.
Speaker 1:So the next episode I'm going to finish up with this whole situation with Carthage and Rome, with the second and third Punic Wars and kind of the aftermath, and then from there I wanted to start discussing China and then from China I'm thinking that we'll probably get into the Greeks and then the Romans and then boom right up into medieval Europe and the Caliphates and all the other fun stuff.
Speaker 1:So once we get into really the romance and beyond, then we'll start really switching up the episodes and it's going to be probably more about the money side, the creation of money and the trade, but a lot of the money side and I probably won't be as off topic as I am in this particular episode because, like I said, this is the history of money banking and trade, but honestly, I realized that it isn't really within the scope of the podcast, but nonetheless, I find it to be fascinating and I hope you do too. If you like what you hear and want to donate to the show, you can visit us at patreoncom slash history of money banking trade, or you can visit our website at moneybankingtradecom history of money banking trade, or you can visit our website at moneybankingtradecom. Once again, I want to thank you for taking your time and I hope you'll be back again. Talk to you soon.
