How was the roman republic weakened by the punic wars?

Answer 1

The Roman army was built on subsistence farmers who had to leave their farms to fight. Prolonged campaigns meant that they were not farming, and in their absence the large landowners slyly commandeered common land which provided grazing for the farm ploughing oxen, and other produce to supplement the produce of the small subsistence farms. Under Roman law, if someone took land and was not challenged for a year, it became their possession.

The large landowners also found it cheaper to run their expanded properties with slaves rather than paid labour, and so there was not alternative employment. The defeat of Carthage provided plenty of slaves.

The core strength of the Roman state was disappearing, the Gracchus brothers attemped to reverse the trend and were murdered for their pains - the beginng of civil wars which lasted for a century, and was settled only by a new form of government guided by a single person. The trappings of republicanism were retained, but an autocrat guided it in the background using special powers which progressively increased.

Answer 2

The farming class which had borne the brunt of manning the army had been badly affected by the alienation of their lands during their prolonged absences at war, and by their replacement by the slaves produced by the wars in Carthage and subsequenty in Greece.

Their place in the army was taken by recruitment of the non-propertied class to beat back the Germanic invasion. This new class of soldiers, not having farms to go back to, looked to their general for support, creating leaders with a large clientele to support them. This gave these leaders support outside th normal electoral and patronage system, and they were able to contest for power between each other by direct rather than traditional electoral means, leading to the emerging civil wars.

Attempts to re-establish a politically stable system by Sulla and Julius Caesar failed to produce durable solutions which outlived them, leaving to Octavian Augustus. after the civil wars. the answer of keeping over-riding reserve powers and control of the army while maintaining the republican facade. This left the Republic in name with limited power - a guided republic we now call thee Principate because of the over-riding power of its head - the Princeps (emperor is a modern term - imperator at that time was a title conferrd on a successful general by acclaim of his army in the field battle).

Answer 3

It had 120 years of wars, but won all three, destroyed its competitor for control of the Western Mediterranean, Carthage, and laid the foundations for its expansion into the Eastern Mediterranean. Hurt for the victims, but good for Rome as a whole.

Answer 4

It became dominant in the Western Mediterranean, and began to be involved in the Hellenistic east.

Answer 5

The Roman Republic was replaced by the Principate over a hundred years after continuing civil war, so it is difficult to attribute it directly to the Punic Wars.

Answer 6

It gained dominance in the Western Mediterranean, was drawn into the Eastern Mediterranean.