Hello and welcome to another ancient warfare magazine podcast. I'm Angus Wallace.

In this episode, we'll be looking at Volume 9, Issue 4, the First Punic War.

To discuss the topic, I'm joined by Joshua Browers, Mary Dame, Lindsay Powell, Mark McCaffrey and Mark DeSantis.

So this would be the longest

uninterrupted war in antiquity

between Rome and Carthage.

Up until this point,

Rome has been focused on the Italian peninsula,

but when the mammothines on Sicily

asked for help, they assisted.

Why?

The Romans had not yet ventured overseas and they knew it might

bring them into conflict with Carthage. Sicily was already quite a bit of a disaster area,

of course, in the 5th or 4th centuries BC with the Greeks and the Carthaginians, fighting it out

amongst themselves and the native people getting involved as well

and then Pyrrhus eventually being invited over to southern Italy

and then going to Sicily to try and get things done there

and then the Romans got involved and basically as far as I see it is sort of the whole catalyst

for how everything spiraled out of control eventually.

It also shows up the Carthagin how everything spiraled out of control eventually.

It also shows up the Carthaginian weaknesses in Sicily at that time when you've got Peris going over there and showing that you can actually turf out the Carthaginians

and get the locals onto your side, although Peris isn't as successful

...