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The First Punic War: A Military History (Paperback)

~ (Author) "The conflict that is the subject of this book, the First Punic War, lasted from 264 to 241..." (more)
Key Phrases: triumphal records, line abeam, allied cohorts, Cape Hermaia, Valerius Maximus, Atilius Caiatinus (more...)
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)

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  Hardcover, May 31, 1996 $57.00 $56.97 $55.82
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  Paperback, April 1996 -- $77.42 $11.99

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Product Description

This is the first comprehensive study of the longest continuous war (264 to 241 b.c.) in ancient history, and, in terms of the numbers of ships and men involved, probably the greatest naval war ever fought.
--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 205 pages
  • Publisher: Stanford University Press (April 1996)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0804726744
  • ISBN-13: 978-0804726740
  • Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 0.7 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 14.6 ounces
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,235,068 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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J. F. Lazenby
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Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
The conflict that is the subject of this book, the First Punic War, lasted from 264 to 241. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
triumphal records, line abeam, allied cohorts, fourth squadron, naval triumph, praetor urbanus, third squadron, other consul, second squadrons, new consuls, ancient warfare, captured ships
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Cape Hermaia, Valerius Maximus, Atilius Caiatinus, Heraclea Minoa, Claudius Pulcher, First Punic War, Scipio Asina, Cassius Dio, Hamilcar Barca, Atilius Regulus, Hannibalic War, Fabius Pictor, Mercenary War, Caecilius Metellus, Claudius Caudex, Fulvius Flaccus, Cape Vaticano, Hannibal the Rhodian, Lutatius Catulus, Monte Castellachio, Scipio Africanus, Sulpicius Paterculus, Cape Bon, Cape Tyndaris, Gulf of Gabes
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29 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Rome's First Great War, January 4, 2001
By E. T. Veal (Chicago, Illinois USA) - See all my reviews
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Polybius begins his history of Rome's rise to domination of the Mediterranean with the First Punic War (264-241 B.C.), and he was no doubt right about its significance. For the first time, Roman forces ventured outside of Italy, fought at sea and invaded another continent. By war's end, the City had added Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica to its sphere of influence and could no longer be ignored by other Mediterranean states. It had also acquired a relentless enemy in defeated Carthage and, especially, the Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca. For two decades after peace was declared, the Barcids devoted their energies to building a new Punic dominion in Spain to support their dreams of revenge, dreams that were almost fulfilled by Hamilcar's son, Hannibal.

One would like to, but cannot, trace so important a conflict in at least moderate detail. Polybius, our fullest source, merely summarizes events as a prelude to the Second Punic War, and his narrative is a blend of two lost authors of uncertain reliability, without the eyewitness evidence that undergirds the main portion of his work. To fill the gaps in Polybius, all that survive are fragments, epitomes and the summaries of late compilers like the 5th Century Orosius and 12th Century Zonaras.

The patchiness of the sources is frustratingly apparent in the last period of the war. In 249 Rome lost virtually its entire fleet to a battle and a storm, just at the moment when Carthage's handful of remaining strongholds in Sicily seemed on the verge of collapse. At that point fog descends. We are told that Hamilcar Barca conducted a brilliant guerilla campaign for the next eight years. Polybius calls him the best general on either side, and the Carthaginians awarded him their most important post-war commands. But what he did to earn that reputation is a mystery. Equally mysterious is the apparent passivity of both combatants. Carthage devoted its military energies to subduing its African neighbors, making little effort to regain its Mediterranean position, while Rome waited seven years to construct another navy. What was going on, and why? We will never know.

Incidents are not all that the record lacks. The institutional background is hazy; both cities changed between the first and second wars, but we do not know how or how much. The statesmen and generals are little more than names. Motives and strategies are largely guesswork.

At the most basic level, it is hardly possible to form a clear notion of how battles were fought. Professor Lazenby remarks that "we do not even know exactly what a quinquereme was". He is too optimistic. We do not even know _approximately_ what a quinquereme was, except that it was the principal warship on both sides and had a name derived from five somethings having to do with oars. Obscure in a different way is the "crow", a Roman invention that combined boarding bridge and grappling hook. Polybius credits this "wonder weapon" with negating Carthaginian superiority in seamanship, enabling the inexperienced Roman navy to sweep all of its early battles. Yet the device looks easy to counter; strong men with poles should have been able to fend it off while their vessel backed oars and slipped out of reach. Moreover, the Romans, after supposedly using the crow successfully for 15 years, abruptly gave it up, and no one ever employed it again.

For undertaking what many would call an impossible feat of reconstruction, Professor Lazenby deserves kudos. He assembles a lucid outline by sifting and comparing the ancient sources, laying out his reasoning in meticulous but rarely exhausting detail. His operating assumption is that virtually all of the recorded facts go back to something that really occurred rather than just to imagination. There are some limits to this principle. He rejects out of hand the romantic story of the consul Regulus' self-sacrifice. But he defends Polybius' enormous figures for the numbers of ships and men engaged at the Battle of Ecnomus (256 B.C.) and lost in the storm off Camarina (255 B.C.). Many readers will probably be more skeptical, but at least they are given a fair accounting of the data.

The product of this effort is not vivid and exciting, but that is not the author's fault. Only fiction could hope to bring the dry bones to life. What can be faulted is the absence of good maps of the theater of war. Roads, topography and ethnic allegiances of Sicilian towns would all be welcome, though they may have fallen victim to budget constraints.

The reader does not need to bring to this book any specialized background knowledge, but the specialist should not find it superficial. More could probably not be said in twice the pages. As the only modern English history of the First Punic War, it will be appreciated by those interested in either ancient military affairs or the development of the Roman Republic.

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars More than a scene-setter for Hannibal, May 26, 2007
By Harry Eagar (Maui) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The First Punic War (Hardcover)
J.F. Lazenby claims his book is the first history of the First Punic War in English. The story, of course, as been told before, but usually as a scene-setter for the more dramatic career of Hannibal in the Second War.

However, the first war was even more important. Not only was it "the longest war in ancient history," it was Rome's first war outside Italy. It was, Lazenby says, by no means certain that Rome would be the victor in any, much less all three, of its wars with Carthage. Therefore, he judges the victory ending the first war in 241 BC one of the most important in all history. He also labels the naval battle of Ecnormus the greatest in all history, at least in terms of numbers of sailors engaged.

It should be remembered that this started just a century before the revolt of the Maccabees, in an out-of-the-way place. Carthage was big and strong, Rome an emerging regional power.

Since my primary interest is the role of sea power, the First Punic War is of special interest. Throughout history, in situations where sea power could be decisive, it almost always has been. Not here. At least, not in the way anyone would have expected.

At the start, Carthage was the sea power, with better ships, better sailors. It should have had better captains, but perhaps it did not. Rome had no navy at all, although its recently absorbed southern Italian allies (Greeks) had maritime experience.

Carthage ought to have been able to use the flexibility of sea power to quickly end Rome's entry into Sicily. As it happened, Rome won every sea battle but one. In part this was due to advances in technology (the corvus or boarding ramp) and tactics (use of shore artillery to defend an inferior fleet).

However, these victories, until the last one, did not count for much in the campaign because three times Rome's navy was destroyed by storms, twice just after important victories.

Lazenby tentatively identifies the difference as strategic: Rome was bent on conquest (though not at the outset), while Carthage, a trading power, preferred peace, business and compromise of differences. Rome would not settle for less than total victory.

Lazenby says of the Romans, "they thought they had to finish anything they began, nothing they had once decided to do being impossible." That used to be the American way of war, too, but no longer.

"The First Punic War" is one of the oddest history books I have ever read. The sources are few and contradictory, and while archaeology, numismatics and geography are some help, the word "uncertain" appears scores of times. "It is difficult to know what to make of all this," Lazenby says over and over.

He makes an excellent effort, nevertheless.

Although I usually avoid commenting on other reviews, I am mystified by the reviewer who complained that Lazenby does not give a strategic view. He does, and in an epilogue recapitulates his strategic conclusions.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Good Scholarship, Needs Strategic Picture, October 6, 2005
Excellent book for covering the First Punic War, which very few books cover in any detail. For Hannibal and Rome lovers, this war sets the stage for Hannibal's war, but very little exists for anyone to understand where Carthage's animosity came from.

Mr Lazenby's book is an excellent compilation of the war from various sources. He addresses many key issues, such as where battles occurred. This book, however, has few maps and does not provide much strategic sense of what each side was trying to accomplish. Trying to figure out why the Romans attacked a certain town is something you must figure out on your own. Since there is nothing else out there, however, it is an excellent start.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Definitive English history of the First Punic War
J. F. Lazenby's "First Punic War" is widely recognized as the definitive history of the First Punic War in English, primarily because few historians have been willing to tackle... Read more
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