Читать книгу The History of almost Everything. Practical guide of the eaters of Time - Lim Word - Страница 10

Seven centuries BC – the foundation of the capital. Two centuries – the royal period. Then – the Republic, invasion of the Gauls, geese, “grief defeated”. The war with Great Greece – King Pyrrhus and the catastrophic Pyrrhic victory.

The First Punic War. The struggle with Carthage for Sicily, the foundation of the fleet after the model of a Carthaginian ship thrown ashore by the storm. The action is transferred to Africa, where the victories of the Romans entail euphoria, and then a serious defeat. Remnants of the army are evacuated, on the way back the fleet dies in a storm.

Actions are transferred to Sicily, where the troops of Carthage are commanded by Hamilcar Barca. The forces of the parties are depleted, the Carthaginian fleet is defeated by the curtain. Carthage pays a solid indemnity and renounces Sicily.

The Second Punic War – two centuries BC – Hamilcar Barca perishes, leaving three sons – Hannibal, Magon and Hasdrubal. Hannibal crosses to Italy through the Alps, defeats the Romans at Cannes, after a year tries to take Rome, but for some reason (a thunderstorm interpreted by both sides as the wrath of the gods, or the fall of a meteorite) the battle will not take place. The Romans seize the allied Carthage of Syracuse, and the great scientist of antiquity, Archimedes, dies. The Thirty-thousandth Corps of the Romans, under the command of Scipio of Africa, lands in Africa, makes alliances with local Libyan tribes, and defeats Carthage’s army. Hannibal runs to the king of Antioch, to the south of modern Turkey, takes part in battles against Rome, the second time after the battle of Zama, personally meets Scipio. Then he moves to become Armenia, independent of the Seleucids, where he leads the construction of the capital near modern-day Yerevan, then Bithynia (northern Turkey). The Bithynian king, wishing peace, decides to extradite Hannibal, but the Carthaginian general accepts the poison.

Fifty years of peace, all contributions paid, in 149 BC. the third Punic war begins. Violating the terms of the treaty, the Carthaginians rebuff the local tribe of the Libyans, the official ally of Rome. The thought of Cato the Elder, “Cartago dilindum ess” – Carthage must be destroyed, “repeated every time at a meeting of the Senate, becomes one of the motives for the existence of the Romans. Landed in Africa, the troops begin a siege. Three years later Carthage was taken, burned, plowed, covered with salt for 17 days, so that even the spirits of its former inhabitants could not appear here. The capital of the new Roman province of Africa is the city of Utica, located a few kilometers from the former capital of the eastern power, formerly a stronghold of Roman legionaries. The civilization of Puno-Phoenician Canaanites is almost completely destroyed.

…The Roman Republic, undergoing the tyranny of Sulla and Gaius Maria, hardly reflects the new invasion of the Gauls and Teutons. Then comes the rebellion of Spartacus. Ten years after the suppression of the mutiny, the Caesar-Pompeii-Crass triumvirate is created. Crassus, along with seven legions, perishes in Parthia, (modern Iran and Turkmenistan) formed from the Seleucid state.

Fifty years BC. – the rise of Caesar, the war in the territory of modern France, a brief invasion of Britain. With the death of his wife Pompey, daughter of Caesar, the relative and spiritual ties break down, the commander crosses the Rubicon River, captures Rome. Civil war takes more than a quarter of Roman male citizens. Pompey is trying to hide in Egypt, but is dying off the coast of the Mediterranean Sea under unclear circumstances.

Caesar starts a romance with the heiress of the pharaohs Cleopatra, which, in the end, leads to the inclusion of Egypt in the composition of Rome.