Roman Legion

The Roman Legion had 5,000 soldiers and they were not in it for the pay. The Roman's had an elite heavy infantry and they were recruited exclusively from Roman citizens. There were groups of eighty in century and the ones on horseback were the cavalry. Their armor consisted of a shield, sword, dagger, and regular armor and a tunic. The Punic Wars were from 264 to 146 BCE and it was Rome vs Carthage and there were three main parts of the war. The First Punic War lasted from 264 to 241 BCE and they were mostly naval battles for the control of the strategically located island of Sicily, which Rome won. The Second Punic War was from 218 to 201 BCE and 29 year old Carthaginian general Hannibal almost takes over Rome. He does the unthinkable and attacks Rome from the North after crossing Iberia and the Alps. He sieged to mucuh of the peninsula for 15 years but he never got to Rome. The Third Punic War was from 149 to 146 BCE and this was when Rome wanted to get rid of Carthage. Scipio, Tiberius Gracchus, and others attacked the city with no mercy. Carthage was burned for 17 days and they city was destroyed. The left over 50,000 survivors were enslaved to Rome. The rest of not destroyed Carthage territories were annexed, and made into the Roman province of Africa. This enslavement of 50,000 jumpstarted the Roman expansion. By the end of the 2nd century there was about a million slaves in Italy. Rome knocked this one out of the park!