Day 4 - History's First Genocide... Probably Have a Day! w/ The History Wizard

Content warning for discussion of genocide
Episode music can be found here: https://uppbeat.io/track/paulo-kalazzi/heros-time
Day 4 will take a deep dive into the Punic Wars and the Sacking of Carthage. The Fall of Carthage is widely considered to be the first recorded genocide in history and we will be looking at the hows the why and the whos of it all.
Episode Notes below:
Hey, Hi, Hello, this is the History Wizard and welcome back for Day 4 of Have a Day w/ The History Wizard. Thank you to everyone who tuned in for Day 3 last week, and especially thank you to everyone who rated and/or reviewed the podcast. I hope you all learned something last week and I hope the same for this week. This week we’re going to be going all the way back to the purported origins of my field of study. This week we’re going to be discussing History’s first genocide… probably. Remember that genocide require intent to destroy a specific group of people, and the destruction of Carthage during the Third Punic war is the first time in history that was can demonstrate that intent, at least so far.
As always we are not going to be diving right into the event itself. All history exists within specific cultural, national, and ethnic contexts. Genocide moreso than any other type of event. No nation just wakes up one day and suddenly decides to go on a mass murder spree. So what caused Rome and Carthage, two states that had been allies and friends for hundreds of years to suddenly fight three wars against each other and ultimately, in the case of Rome, wipe Carthage off the map?
Following the Pyrrhic War and throughout the middle of the 3rd century BCE Rome and Carthage because the two preeminent powers of the Mediterranean. During this time Carthage would come to dominate southern Spain, much of the coastal regions of North Africa, the Balearic Islands, Corsica, Sardinia, and the western half of Sicily, in a military and commercial empire. Whereas Rome had subjugated almost the entirety of the Italian peninsula and finally driven the last Greek colonies off of the mainland.
In 265 BCE a group of Italian mercenaries called the Mamertines appealed to both Carthage and Rome for aid after they had seized the city of Messana on the island of Sicily (modern day Messina) from the Kingdom of Syracuse. Carthage immediately entered the war, but on the side of Hiero II the King of Syracuse. The Romans, as Romans are wont to do, debated for a while about this. They didn’t really want to go to war to support people who had stolen a city from its rightful owner, and as Carthage had already entered on Syracuse’s side, entering the war at the Mamertine’s request could lead to a war with Carthage. However,  Appius Claudius Caudex filled his fellow senator heads, as well as the heads of the general assembly, with thoughts of booty and plunder. Many of the senators were already arguing that there was a strategic and monetary advantage to gaining a foothold on Sicily.
The First Punic War officially began when the first Roman sandal made landfall in 264 BCE. By the way, in case you’re wondering why it’s called the Punic war, and not the Carthaginian War, Punicus was a term the Romans used to refer to the people of Carthage, hearkening back to their Phonecian origins. When the Romans landed Messana was under siege by the combined forces of the Carthaginians and the armies of Syracuse. Sources are unclear as to why, but first the Syracusans and then the Carthiginians withdrew from the siege. Rome’s armies, under the command of Caudex marched south and put Syracuse under siege, but having only brought two legions with them they did not have the forces or supplies for a protracted siege. 
Immediately this war was looking to be a bad idea for Rome, as Carthage had nearly overwhelming naval superiority at the beginning of the war. Indeed it is somewhat shocking, at face value, that Rome was able to win the First Punic War as the majority of the 23 ye