This is John Batchster, a conversation with Professor Ed Watts, his book, The Romans, A vast history.

Here the professor addresses the first contest that brought Rome up from dominating the Italian peninsula to dominating the Mediterranean basin, both sides.

The battle with Carthage.

Its resources, its people, its position, its geography,

and its contest for Sicily tell a story of what appears to be fate,

Carthage versus Rome.

Ed Watts, much more of this tonight and weeks to come, the Romans.

Yeah, basically, when you look at the geography of the Mediterranean, the Mediterranean has

kind of, it's one basin, but there are two parts of it. The Eastern Mediterranean in this

moment, in antiquity, was the wealthy, urbanized center of production.

And the Western Mediterranean was the center of raw materials.

And in the middle was the Italian peninsula and what's now Tunisia and Sicily.

So whoever controlled that middle controlled the access of the access to raw materials that those

wealthy urban areas in the eastern Mediterranean needed. And Carthage initially was founded by

Phoenicians coming from the Eastern Mediterranean to set up trading colonies that would allow

them to participate and dominate

that exchange. So Carthage was the dominant economic power that managed the exchange

of goods across this territory. But as Rome expanded, it quickly came into, after its conquest

of Italy and then the defeat of Paris, it quickly came into, after its conquest of Italy and then the defeat of peers, it quickly came

into a conflict that drew it into Sicily.

Sicily at that moment was divided between Carthaginians and Greeks.

Rome came in and immediately Carthage panicked because it didn't want Rome controlling Sicily

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