who were the participants of the punic wars
First Punic War The First Punic War (264 to 241 BC) was the first of three wars fought between Ancient Carthage and the Roman Republic, the two great powers of the Western Mediterranean. For 23 years, in the longest continuous conflict and greatest naval war of ancient times, the two powers struggled for supremacy, primarily on the Mediterranean island of Sicily and its surrounding waters, and also in North Africa.
Roman expansion in Italy In the years following the Pyrrhic War, Rome completed the conquest of Italy by subduing the Umbrians and Picentes in the north and the Sallentini and Messapii in the south-east. In 264 BC the consul Marcus Fulvius Flaccus put down a social uprising in the Etruscan city of Volsinii and reinstalled the old ruling families in power. That same year his colleague Appius Claudius Caudex led a Roman army across to Sicily, starting the First Punic War and a new phase in the history of the Roman Republic.