The Rivals of Rome: The History and Legacy of the Romans’ Most Bitter Enemies

The Roman Republic’s development from a city state into a world power that controlled large swathes of modern Italy, Gaul and Spain, as well as other parts of Europe is seen by many as being the direct result of Roman fear of the “Celtic Threat.” The sacking of Rome by the Gauls in 386 B.C. became indelibly imprinted into the Roman psyche, and with this fear came a desire to put as much distance as possible between the city of Rome and any potential enemy. The result was the gradual acquisition of buffer zones that became provinces of an empire that grew without any particular thought out or deliberate strategy of expansion.

Carthage was one of the great ancient civilizations, and at its peak, the wealthy Carthaginian empire dominated the Mediterranean against the likes of Greece and Rome, with commercial enterprises and influence stretching from Spain to Turkey. In fact, at several points in history it had a very real chance of replacing the fledgling Roman empire or the failing Greek poleis (city-states) altogether as master of the Mediterranean. Although Carthage by far preferred to exert economic pressure and influence before resorting to direct military power (and even went so far as to rely primarily on mercenary armies paid with its vast wealth for much of its history, it nonetheless produced a number of outstanding generals, from the likes of Hanno Magnus to, of course, the great bogeyman of Roman nightmares himself: Hannibal. 

By the 4th century A.D., The Goths were among the prominent barbarian groups who became a threat to the Roman Empire, but they also had contacts with the Romans well before then, and they even traded for awhile. The two branches of the Goths that are best known, the Visigoths and Ostrogoths, stared down the Roman Empire as it neared its collapse and supplanted it with a kingdom in Italy in the 5th and 6th centuries respectively.