The Punic Wars

Between 264 and 146 BCE Rome and Carthage contest the western Mediterranean. Rome, with no naval tradition, builds fleets from scratch and loses them repeatedly to storms. Hannibal crosses the Alps with elephants and annihilates a Roman army at Cannae in 216 BCE — still studied as the model double envelopment — and still loses the war. In 146 BCE Carthage is destroyed and its territory annexed. Rome emerges as the dominant Mediterranean power and a permanently militarised society.