• 48 strips
  • Checked October 2026

The First Punic War Facts Comic Ideas

One comic strip per press on the wars between Rome and Carthage, each built on a dated fact.

The First Punic War Facts Comic Ideas

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  1. Why the boarding bridge drops out of the story1. A Roman ship with the heavy bridge standing at its bow.2. A storm, and a fleet in trouble.3. A shipyard, later: no bridges on the new ships.Fact: The bridge is not mentioned again after the storm losses of the 250s BCE, and its weight in bad weather may be the reason.

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First Punic War 18

  • A general nicknamed Lightning 1. 247 BCE. Carthage can no longer pay for a large army. 2. Its new commander in Sicily, Hamilcar, fights with quick raids instead: strike, and be gone. 3. That same year his son is born: Hannibal. Fact: The family name Barca comes from the Punic word baraq, lightning.
  • The biggest sea battle anyone had counted 1. A map of the south coast of Sicily, 256 BCE. 2. About 330 Roman ships on one side and 350 from Carthage on the other, drawn as rows of dots. 3. A caption counts the people aboard: up to 290,000 rowers and marines. Fact: Counted by people involved, Cape Ecnomus may be the largest sea battle in history.
  • The bill for losing: 3,200 talents of silver 1. A table, two delegations and one long scroll. 2. The terms: Carthage leaves Sicily, hands back its prisoners and pays 3,200 talents over ten years. 3. On the map, Sicily changes color. Fact: Sicily became Rome's first province outside Italy.
  • Carthage hires a Spartan to fix its army 1. 255 BCE. A Roman army has landed in Africa, and Carthage's generals have lost on rough, hilly ground. 2. A hired Spartan officer, Xanthippus, reorganizes the army. 3. He marches it out onto flat country, where 4,000 riders and nearly 100 elephants have room. 4. The Roman general is captured. Fact: Peace talks had just failed because the Roman terms were so harsh.
  • The city that asked both sides for help 1. Messana, on the tip of Sicily, is held by soldiers for hire called the Mamertines. 2. Beaten by their neighbor Syracuse, they ask Carthage for help, and Carthage sends a garrison. 3. Then they ask Rome as well, and show the garrison out. 4. Rome and Carthage arrive on the same doorstep. Fact: Rome sent its first troops across to Sicily in 264 BCE.
  • Divers find the last battle on the seabed 1. The sea off western Sicily, in our own century. A research boat at anchor. 2. Divers bring up the bronze beak of a warship, green with age. 3. In the lab it is measured: small enough to have come from a trireme. Fact: Since 2010 archaeologists have been recovering objects from the site of the battle of the Aegates.
  • The first victory parade for a win at sea 1. A map, 260 BCE, off Mylae in Sicily. Two rows of ship shapes, 145 Roman and 130 Carthaginian. 2. The Roman commander, Duilius, sails home the winner. 3. Rome gives him a triumph, a victory parade through the city. Fact: It was the first triumph in Rome's history awarded for a victory at sea.
  • The historian who arrived as a hostage 1. 167 BCE. A Greek named Polybius is sent to Rome as a hostage. 2. He stays, asks questions and writes. 3. His Histories on a shelf, and next to it an empty one: Carthage's own records were destroyed with the city. Fact: Polybius wrote about a century after the First Punic War ended.
  • Inside a quinquereme 1. Outside: a long galley with three banks of oars. 2. A cutaway: the rowers sit in groups of five. 3. A head count: a crew of 300, and 280 of them pull an oar. Fact: Quinquereme means five-oared, and it was the standard warship of both fleets.
  • The raven: a boarding bridge with a beak 1. Roman captains have a problem: Carthaginian crews handle their ships far better. 2. An idea. A bridge on a pole at the bow, 36 feet long, with a heavy spike like a beak under its far end. 3. Dropped on another deck, the spike holds the two ships together. 4. Now soldiers can cross as if on land. Fact: The Romans called it the corvus, their word for a raven.
  • Rome builds a navy in sixty days from a ship it found 1. Rome needs a fleet and has almost no experience of building one. 2. A Carthaginian warship runs aground, and the Romans haul it in. 3. Carpenters use it as a pattern and copy it again and again. 4. Sixty days later: 100 quinqueremes and 20 triremes. Fact: The ship counts are from Polybius, the Greek historian who is the main source for the war.
  • Rome runs out of money and borrows a fleet 1. After twenty years of war, Rome is close to bankrupt. 2. Rich citizens lend the money for one more fleet. 3. Two hundred new ships put to sea in 242 BCE. 4. March 10, 241 BCE, off the Aegates Islands: the borrowed fleet wins, and Carthage asks for terms. Fact: Carthage had tried to borrow too, 2,000 talents from Egypt, and was refused.
  • Rowing practice on dry land 1. Rowing benches set out on a beach, in the same order as on a ship. There is no ship. 2. A caller gives the word, and the crews swing back and forward together, pulling at air. 3. The first real launch. Fact: Polybius says the crews were taught to row on shore while the ships were being built.
  • The sacred chickens refuse their breakfast 1. 249 BCE, before dawn, at sea near Drepana. Roman custom: offer food to the sacred chickens. If they eat eagerly, the signs are good. 2. The chickens will not eat. 3. The consul, Claudius Pulcher: "If they are not hungry, perhaps they are thirsty." Over the side they go. 4. Rome loses 93 of its 120 ships. Fact: Polybius does not mention the chickens, so some historians doubt the story.
  • Two cities, one island between them 1. Rome, at the top of the map, with an army that wins on land. 2. Carthage, at the bottom, with crews famous for their skill at sea. 3. Sicily, in the middle, and both are looking at it. Fact: The First Punic War, 264 to 241 BCE, was fought largely over control of Sicily.
  • Where the word Punic comes from 1. Carthage, a harbor city in North Africa, founded by Phoenician settlers. 2. Across the sea a Roman uses the Latin word for its people: "Punicus." 3. So three wars between two cities end up with one name. Fact: Punic comes from the Latin Punicus, meaning Phoenician.
  • The whole war as one strip of years 1. 264 BCE: the first Roman troops cross to Sicily. 2. A long strip of years, with fleets, storms and sieges drawn small along it. 3. 241 BCE: peace. Fact: At 23 years it was the longest continuous war of the ancient Greek and Roman world, and its greatest war at sea.
  • Why the boarding bridge drops out of the story 1. A Roman ship with the heavy bridge standing at its bow. 2. A storm, and a fleet in trouble. 3. A shipyard, later: no bridges on the new ships. Fact: The bridge is not mentioned again after the storm losses of the 250s BCE, and its weight in bad weather may be the reason.

Second Punic War 16

  • A battle plan shaped like a crescent 1. A diagram of blocks and arrows only, August 216 BCE, at Cannae. Rome's blocks form one deep column. Hannibal's center is a curved line. 2. The curve gives way as the column pushes in. 3. Blocks from the two wings close in on the sides. Fact: Hannibal won at Cannae against a much larger army.
  • A line on a river and a city on the wrong side of it 1. A map of Spain with one river marked, the Ebro. A treaty of 226 BCE makes it the northern edge of Carthage's side. 2. Well south of the river sits Saguntum, which has an agreement with Rome. In 219 BCE Hannibal takes it. 3. Roman envoys sail for Carthage. Fact: In spring 218 BCE Rome declared war.
  • A nine-year-old makes a promise at an altar 1. Hamilcar is leaving for Spain. His son Hannibal, about nine, begs to come along. 2. His father takes him by the hand to an altar: first, a promise. 3. The boy swears never to be a friend of the Romans. Fact: Hannibal told the story himself years later, and Polybius wrote it down.
  • Every horn in the army, all at once 1. October 202 BCE, a plain in what is now Tunisia. Hannibal opens with a charge of war elephants. 2. Scipio answers with noise: his riders blow their horns together. 3. The elephants panic and turn. Fact: The battle is named for the town of Zama. For winning the war in Africa, Scipio was given the extra name Africanus.
  • Five months on foot from Spain to Italy 1. 218 BCE. Hannibal's army leaves New Carthage, now Cartagena in Spain. 2. Over the Pyrenees. 3. Across the river Rhône. 4. Over the Alps. 5. Down into the plain of the river Po, in Italy. Fact: Polybius says the whole march took five months, and the Alps fifteen days of it.
  • The general who would not fight 1. 217 BCE. After heavy defeats Rome names a dictator, Fabius Maximus. 2. His plan: follow Hannibal, cut off his supplies and never offer a pitched battle. 3. Rome gives him a nickname, Cunctator, the Delayer. 4. Hannibal, far from home, has nobody to beat. Fact: Wearing an enemy down while avoiding big battles is still called a Fabian strategy.
  • The historian who crossed the Alps to check 1. Polybius is writing the story of Hannibal's march. 2. He questions men who were there. 3. Then he crosses the Alps himself, to see the ground with his own eyes. Fact: He says so in book 3 of his Histories.
  • Not the elephant you are picturing 1. A huge elephant of the African plains. Caption: not this one. 2. A smaller elephant in a North African forest. Caption: this one. 3. A map of the coast around Carthage, where they once lived. Fact: North Africa had its own forest elephants at the time, and Carthage's army used them.
  • Over the Alps with horses, mules and elephants 1. A narrow track climbing into the Alps, late in 218 BCE: soldiers, horses, pack animals and elephants in single file. 2. Snow near the top of the pass. 3. The way down. 4. The plain of the Po: about 20,000 foot soldiers and 6,000 riders walk out of the mountains. Fact: Those are the numbers Polybius gives for the army that reached Italy.
  • Rome goes after the silver instead 1. Hannibal is still in Italy. 2. A Roman general of 25, Scipio, sails the other way, to Spain. 3. 209 BCE: he captures New Carthage, the supply base and treasury of Carthage in Spain, and its silver mines change hands. Fact: The mines had paid for Carthage's armies since the first war was lost.
  • Scientists look for Hannibal's route in a bog 1. A map of the Alps with five dotted routes and five question marks. Nobody knows which pass Hannibal used. 2. Researchers dig into a peat bog beside one of them, the Col de la Traversette. 3. A layer of old mud, churned as if by thousands of animals and people. Fact: The finding supports that pass. The argument goes on.
  • Ten warships and no elephants 1. 201 BCE. A peace treaty is read out in Carthage. 2. The list: give up every land overseas, keep ten warships, keep no war elephants, pay 10,000 talents of silver over fifty years. 3. And a last line: no war in Africa without Rome's permission. Fact: The Second Punic War had lasted from 218 to 201 BCE.
  • Thirty-seven elephants have to cross a river 1. The Rhône, and 37 elephants on its bank. 2. Engineers build long piers out from the shore and tie big rafts to the ends. 3. They cover it all with soil, so that it looks like dry land. 4. The elephants walk out, and the rafts are towed across. 5. A few jump in halfway. They wade the rest with their trunks held above the water. Fact: The number is from Polybius.
  • Two thousand oxen with lights on their horns 1. Hannibal's army is boxed in, and Fabius holds the pass ahead. 2. Night. Hannibal has bundles of dry wood tied to the horns of about 2,000 oxen, lit, and the herd driven up a ridge. 3. The guards leave the pass to chase the moving lights, and the army walks through. Fact: Polybius tells it in book 3 of his Histories.
  • War or peace, out of the fold of a toga 1. Roman envoys stand before the senate of Carthage. The oldest points to the fold of his toga: it holds both war and peace, and he will let fall whichever they choose. 2. The chief magistrate of Carthage: let fall whichever you like. 3. The envoy lets fall one word, "War", and the senators shout back that they accept it. Fact: Polybius tells the scene in book 3 of his Histories.
  • What the first winter did to the elephants 1. The elephants come down out of the Alps into Italy. 2. Their first winter there: rain, then snow, then bitter cold. 3. One elephant is left. Fact: Polybius says all the elephants but one died of the cold that winter.

Third Punic War 14

  • A city behind 34 kilometers of wall 1. Carthage from above: walls, ditches and the sea all around. 2. In places the wall is three lines deep. 3. A Roman army camped outside, and still outside a year later. Fact: The city held out from 149 to 146 BCE.
  • A neighbor takes one slice of land at a time 1. The treaty of 201 BCE: Carthage may not make war in Africa without Rome's leave. 2. Next door, King Masinissa of Numidia takes a slice of Carthaginian land. 3. Then another. In time, about half of it. 4. 150 BCE: Carthage sends an army against him without asking. 5. Rome has the excuse it was waiting for. Fact: Carthage's envoys went to Rome to explain and were turned away.
  • A round harbor hidden behind a square one 1. From the sea only the merchant harbor shows, a rectangle full of trading ships. 2. Behind it, a great circular harbor for the war fleet. 3. In the middle of the circle, an island with a tower, joined to the ring by a causeway. Fact: Both harbors were man-made.
  • A senator ends every speech the same way 1. Cato, an old senator, finishes a speech on some other subject entirely. Last line: "Carthage must be destroyed." 2. Another day, another subject. The same last line. 3. The whole row of senators mouths it along with him. Fact: The line is quoted in Latin as Carthago delenda est. That short wording comes from scholars of about 1800, not from an ancient writer.
  • An empty site, then a Roman Carthage 1. 146 BCE. Carthage's lands turn into Rome's province of Africa, governed from Utica. 2. The site of the city stays empty for a century. 3. Then a new, Roman Carthage is founded on the same ground. Fact: Julius Caesar founded it again, and Augustus encouraged it.
  • An old ally changes sides 1. Utica, a long-time ally of Carthage, a little way up the coast. 2. It sees which way things are going and goes over to Rome. 3. Now Rome has a good harbor one day's sail from Carthage. Fact: After the war Utica was made capital of the new Roman province.
  • Cato visits Carthage and does not like what he sees 1. About 153 BCE. Cato arrives in Carthage with a Roman embassy. 2. Full markets, busy harbors, a city growing rich and strong again. 3. He sails home alarmed. Fact: Cato fought in the Second Punic War as a young man and died in 149 BCE, the year the third began.
  • The fifty-year bill is paid 1. 201 BCE: 10,000 talents of silver, due over fifty years. 2. Carthage trades, and prospers. 3. 151 BCE: the last payment is counted out. Fact: By then Carthage was rich again and no military threat to Rome.
  • The harbor is blocked, so Carthage digs a new way out 1. 147 BCE. The new Roman commander, Scipio Aemilianus, builds a mole across the one entrance to the harbors. 2. No supply ship can get in. 3. Inside, the Carthaginians cut a second exit to the sea. 4. Their ships sail out through it, to the Romans' surprise. 5. Scipio takes control of that entrance too. Fact: The city fell in the spring of 146 BCE.
  • The language outlives the city 1. 146 BCE: the city of Carthage is gone. 2. In the countryside and small towns of North Africa people go on speaking Punic. 3. Long afterward, they still do. Fact: Roman writers ran the Carthaginians down for generations, but the Punic language and culture held on.
  • The peace treaty that took two thousand years 1. 146 BCE. The war ends with no treaty: one side no longer has a city. 2. A very long gap. 3. February 5, 1985: the mayors of Rome and of modern Carthage sign a symbolic peace. Fact: The war had ended 2,131 years before.
  • Rome's demands grow each time Carthage says yes 1. 149 BCE. Rome asks for 300 children of noble families as hostages. 2. Next: hand over every weapon. Carthage does. 3. Next: leave your city and settle at least 16 kilometers from the sea. 4. A city of sailors and traders, told to move inland. Carthage says no. Fact: The siege that followed lasted three years.
  • The salt that was never sown 1. An old picture: Romans plowing salt into the ground where Carthage stood. 2. A historian traces the story back. It does not go back very far. 3. The picture gets a label: later invention. Fact: The salt story probably dates from the 1800s.
  • The senator who wanted Carthage left standing 1. Cato in the Senate: destroy it. 2. Scipio Nasica, on the other side: leave it where it is. 3. His reason, drawn as a thought bubble: a strong rival keeps Romans from quarreling with one another. Fact: Nasica was one of the senators who argued against the war.

How it works

These comic ideas turn the First Punic War facts a class is set into strips: a navy copied from one stranded ship, crews rowing on dry land, sacred chickens that would not eat. The second and third wars have groups of their own.

Read the full guide

The three wars in short

Rome and Carthage fought three wars. The first, 264 to 241 BCE, was fought on Sicily, at sea and in North Africa. In the second, 218 to 201 BCE, Hannibal marched from Spain over the Alps into Italy. The third, 149 to 146 BCE, was the siege of Carthage itself.

A battle is a map

No strip here asks for a fight scene. A battle is a map, a diagram of blocks and arrows, a fleet being built or a treaty being read out, which is quicker to draw and easier to label.

  • Write the year in a caption box in the first panel. Years BCE count down, so 264 comes before 241.
  • Give Rome one color and Carthage another, and keep them the same in every panel, map or not.
  • If people are hard to draw, start with an animal. The elephants, the sacred chickens and the oxen each carry a strip.

Questions and answers

What are some facts about the First Punic War?

It was fought largely over Sicily and lasted 23 years. Rome built 120 warships in sixty days, won the last battle at sea, and made Sicily its first province outside Italy. Carthage paid 3,200 silver talents.

How do you make a comic strip about the Punic Wars?

Choose one fact and give it three panels: the problem, what somebody did about it, and the result. Rome has no navy, Rome copies a stranded ship, Rome has a fleet. That is a whole strip.

Why are they called the Punic Wars?

Punic comes from Punicus, the Latin word for Phoenician. Carthage was a Phoenician city, so the Romans called its people by that name, and the three wars are named after them.

Did Hannibal really cross the Alps with elephants?

Yes. The Greek historian Polybius says Hannibal took 37 elephants across the river Rhône and over the Alps in 218 BCE. By his account all but one died of the cold in their first winter in Italy.

Who won the Punic Wars?

Rome won all three. The first cost Carthage Sicily, the second its lands overseas and most of its fleet, and the third the city itself.

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