Carthage began as Rome's trading partner and ended as a cautionary tale, its city razed and its fields reportedly salted after three wars fought over more than a century. This History Hit documentary tracks the Punic Wars from their opening clashes over Sicily through Hannibal's crossing of the Alps and his years campaigning in Italy, to the final Roman siege that erased Carthage from North Africa. Historians and classicists walk through the political calculations on both sides, the naval innovations Rome had to invent from scratch to challenge a superior Carthaginian fleet, and the personalities, Hannibal, Scipio Africanus, Cato the Elder, who pushed events toward destruction rather than compromise. Location filming at Mediterranean sites and maps charting the shifting front lines help make sense of a conflict that stretched across Spain, Italy, and Africa. The film's throughline is Rome's transformation: a regional power that started the wars fighting for survival and finished them as an empire with no rival left standing.