Editing Punic Wars (section)

==Background and origin==
[[File:First Punic War 264 BC v3.png|thumb|left|upright=1.45|alt=a colour of the western Mediterranean region showing the areas under Roman and Carthaginian control in 264 BC|{{center|The map shows the approximate extent of territory controlled by Rome, Carthage and Syracuse immediately before the start of the First Punic War. Rome is shown in red, Carthage in grey, and Syracuse in green.}}]]
The [[Roman Republic]] had been [[Roman expansion in Italy|aggressively expanding]] in the southern Italian mainland for a century before the [[First Punic War]].{{sfn|Miles|2011|pp=157–158}} By 270 BC, when the last Greek cities of southern Italy ([[Magna Graecia]]) submitted after the conclusion of the [[Pyrrhic War]], it had conquered all of peninsular Italy south of the [[Arno]] River.{{sfn|Bagnall|1999|pp=21–22}} During this period of Roman expansion Carthage, with its capital in what is now [[Tunisia]], had come to dominate southern [[Iberians|Iberia]] (modern Spain and Portugal), much of the coastal regions of North Africa, the [[Balearic Islands]], [[Corsica]], [[Sardinia]] and the western half of Sicily in a maritime empire (a [[thalassocracy]]).{{sfn|Goldsworthy|2006|pp=29–30}}

Beginning in 480{{spaces}}BC Carthage fought a [[Sicilian Wars|series of inconclusive wars]] against the Greek [[city-state]]s of Sicily, led by [[Syracuse, Sicily|Syracuse]].{{sfn|Miles|2011|pp=115, 132}} By 264{{spaces}}BC Carthage was in control of much of the island, especially in the south and the west. Carthage and Rome were the preeminent powers in the western Mediterranean.{{sfn|Goldsworthy|2006|pp=25–27}} Relations were good and the two states had several times declared their mutual friendship in [[Treaties between Rome and Carthage|formal alliances]]: in 509{{spaces}}BC, 348{{spaces}}BC and around 279{{spaces}}BC. There were strong commercial links. During the Pyrrhic War of 280–275{{spaces}}BC, against a king of [[Epirus]] who alternately fought Rome in Italy and Carthage on Sicily, Carthage provided [[materiel]] to the Romans and on at least one occasion provided its navy to ferry a Roman force.{{sfn|Miles|2011|pp=94, 160, 163, 164–165}}{{sfn|Goldsworthy|2006|pp=69–70}} As Rome and Carthage came closer to sharing a joint border the chances of misunderstandings and hostilities increased. In the event they stumbled into war more by accident than design, with neither anticipating a prolonged conflict.{{sfn|Miles|2011|pp=175–176}}{{sfn|Hoyos|2015c|pp=145–147}}{{sfn|Goldsworthy|2006|pp=71–72}}