Trace the three Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage and explain how their outcome made Rome the dominant power of the western Mediterranean.
As the Republic grew, Rome collided with Carthage, a powerful trading city in North Africa (in today's Tunisia) founded by Phoenician settlers, for control of the western Mediterranean. The First Punic War (264-241 BCE) was fought mainly over the island of Sicily; it forced Rome, until then mostly a land power, to build its first real navy, and Rome won Sicily as its first overseas province. The Second Punic War (218-201 BCE) is the most famous: the brilliant Carthaginian general Hannibal Barca marched an army, including war elephants, from Spain over the Alps into Italy itself, and won stunning victories, including the Battle of Cannae (216 BCE), still studied by military strategists today for its near-perfect encirclement of a larger Roman force.
Despite these victories, Hannibal never captured Rome itself or broke its alliance system, and the Roman general Scipio Africanus counterattacked by invading Carthage's home territory in North Africa, defeating Hannibal decisively at the Battle of Zama in 202 BCE. Rome fought one final round, the Third Punic War (149-146 BCE), destroying the city of Carthage completely and selling its survivors into slavery -- the Roman senator Cato the Elder had famously ended every speech, on any topic, with "Carthago delenda est," "Carthage must be destroyed." With its greatest rival erased, Rome now dominated the western Mediterranean and continued expanding, but this new wealth and territory would soon strain the Republic's own institutions.
Mastery looks like: They can sequence the three Punic Wars and explain why Rome, not Carthage, ultimately controlled the western Mediterranean.
Common stumbles: Assuming Hannibal's battlefield victories meant Carthage was winning the war overall.