[speedchess]

> Carthage was much more powerful than Rome was

No it wasn't. The roman republic won the 1st punic war. The carthaginian empire was older for sure but not much more powerful.

> and Rome really had no business thinking it could have won either of those wars.

Rome was the rising and expanding power. Carthage was an old has-been. Rome had every right to think it would prevail. Hence why Rome started the first punic wars.

> and only survived by outright refusing to give up, and then somehow pulling it out of the bag at a key moment.

It's like you gleaned your information from sensationalizing documentaries or a kid's book.

> Rome could have very easily failed and become a Carthaginian vassal state.

The odds of carthage invading and holding rome is 0.

> There would have been no Roman Empire

So western europe could have skipped the dark ages and gotten access to the ancient greek culture ( which is the foundation of european civilization ) sooner?

> and the history of Europe would have been a continent dominated by a North African empire.

Assuming that carthage could have held rome or made any progress against the huns, germanic or slavic tribes up north. If anything, the downfall of rome would have precipitated the rise of northern europe which dominates europe today.

[AmericanChopper]

Rome didn’t even have a navy when it started the first war with Carthage, who were the dominant naval power of the Mediterranean at the time. During the first war Rome had the navies that it managed to build wiped out more than once before the Battle of the Aegates, which it probably wouldn’t have been able to rebuild from if it had lost. They’d been fighting a losing war for nearly 30 years at that point.

Rome also lost every major engagement in the second Punic war prior to Scipio’s campaign through Iberia and North Africa, which very nearly never happened at all. Cannae was probably the most comprehensive military defeat ever at the time, and is still one of the most famous routs in history.

It is possible that Rome could have survived if it lost either of those wars, but it certainly wouldn’t have risen to be the most dominant empire in European history. Rome could have very easily fallen after Cannae if Hannibal had been reinforced, which he very nearly was.

Speculation about what would have happened to Europe without the Roman Empire is just that, and I’m not trying to say it’s a good or bad thing, it’s just fascinating to think how close it came to being something completely different during that part of the republic era.

[inglor_cz]

"Rome was the rising and expanding power. Carthage was an old has-been. "

This sounds like "reading history with a benefit of hindsight". Rising powers may, in fact, well lose their challenge against the old has-beens. Germany and Japan in the 20th century were those rising and expanding powers, but ultimately reaped catastrophic defeats.

Rome survived and won mostly due to their enormous capability to reconstitute their forces after major losses. That was an untypical capability in the premodern world, where a single battle gone wrong (e.g. Gaugamela) could topple an entire empire.

But major losses they did have and the fact that they could still hold after Cannae was a bit of a miracle. They even recruited slaves into the army, a feat that could have easily backfired against the weakened Roman elite.